Meath v Galway: Ian O'Riordantalks to the Meath captain about his team's make-or-break qualifier clash with Galway this afternoon.

Maybe Dublin have made the biggest noise so far and Sligo the biggest fuss but no team has shaken up this football championship on the whole quite like Meath - and by that we mean on and off the pitch. The old reliable objects of fear and loathing had been quiet for too long and their resurgence this summer has been hard to avoid and impossible not to admire.

Who else could throw up such a wave of nostalgia when forcing Dublin to a replay? Who else could roll such weight into the qualifiers? And who else could generate controversy quite like Graham Geraghty's brief exodus from the panel? Who else except Meath - and for that reason it's been good to have them back.

All of which comes to a head in Portlaoise this afternoon when Meath take on Galway in the final qualifier round. For the statisticians this is the first meeting since Galway's crushing All-Ireland victory of 2001 but for the two teams it's far more urgent than that, the game than can truly make or break their season.

Galway are still reeling from losing the Connacht final to Sligo, some people felt they had handed the title to them on a plate. Meath have come through two tough qualifiers, against Down and Fermanagh, and some people reckon they're far from done yet. With a bit of gentle probing it emerges one of those is the Meath captain, Anthony Moyles.

"There's definitely a bit of momentum with this team," says Moyles. "The supporters have got back behind us, and seen all the effort we made against Dublin, even if we did come up just short. But I don't think any of us took any moral victory from those games, or anything like that. I think we're all still very upset at the fact that we lost that game, that we had the edge in the game at a crucial time and lost it.

"But we've worked on that. We haven't set the world alight since then, and certainly against Fermanagh the last day we were very poor. I think we're just happy now to have the chance again to put a few things right against Galway. We know if we play anything like we did against Fermanagh we'll get an absolute hammering.

"But if you look back at the Dublin games, we drew first, and lost narrowly in the end, in what was really only a one- or two-point game. And look at Dublin since; no one has got close to them. They beat Laois well, and a lot of people would have rated Laois higher than us. Maybe Dublin improved, but hopefully if we can get a little bit more out of ourselves then we can improve too."

There is nothing particularly bold about what Moyles says; it's just his conspicuous honesty, again both on and off the field.

This, after all, is the player who once described his most embarrassing moment as having an item of his sister's underwear drop out of his towel at his first training session with the Meath seniors.

On the field his tireless commitment to Meath's cause makes Moyles one of the most honest players around. This season, despite turning 30, he has raised his game to quite startling intensity, frequently producing the sort of surging run we reporters like to describe as "lung-bursting", and often capping it off with an inspiring score.

It's no surprise then that when manager Colm Coyle was deciding on the Meath captaincy this year he looked to Moyles.

He'd made his debut against Offaly in 2000, having first impressed Seán Boylan when helping his club St Paul's win the Meath junior football title in 1999, and by 2007 he was the most senior player on the squad yet to hold the captaincy.

It's proven a brilliant decision; Moyles's leadership has been central to Meath's progress this summer.

It's as if his industry between the half-back and half-forward lines has infected his team-mates, and with Darren Fay also having one of his better seasons behind him, there's been an undeniable stability to Meath not witnessed since their All-Ireland run of 1999.

"Well, I think the thing about me is that I was always a late developer," says Moyles of his own form.

"Even though I'm 30 now I don't feel it, and certainly I feel I'm going as well as ever before. I also think if a team or player is going well they should say it, and I'm looking forward to the challenge ahead of me, and even the responsibility of being captain is something I like and accept.

"The other thing is I'd always give my all, but maybe I didn't always have the confidence to take the chances that I've been taking this year.

"So I think teams know when they're going well, but you can also get into that false sense of security where you think you're going well. Or then you can start to doubt yourself that you're going bad. It really comes down to the day, and how they've prepared for each game.

"The one thing I will say about us is that we have the work-rate, and I don't think we'll ever die. We have that bit of Meath spirit back in that we'll keep going to the end, and we'll certainly put it up to people.

"Now whether our football and our players, and even our suaveness, can match, say, what Dublin and Tyrone and Kerry have from playing big games, whether we have that at the moment, well, I think that's yet to be seen.

"Maybe it will take another year or two to get that kind of hardness you get from a few years in All-Ireland quarter-finals and semi-finals, and playing the top teams. After experience like that you do start doing the simple things better, the things we didn't do so well against Dublin the second day. Like kicking ball aimlessly away when we should have held on to possession. Those are still the things that turn games."

Moyles, however, is not putting limits on how far Meath can go this season. There are probably bigger questions about Galway's form given their tepid display against Sligo.

But neither is Moyles complacent, especially not after their two-point win over Fermanagh last Saturday. It was far from the performance to put Meath back in the mix as All-Ireland contenders. Moyles doesn't have the answer when asked what would ultimately be a successful season for Meath - but the feeling is inside he has a fair idea.

"You think back to 1996," he says, "when Seán Boylan resurrected the Meath team with a lot of younger players. All through that season I know the players were even questioning themselves, that it was just another win, and they'll move on and see. All of a sudden they found themselves in an All-Ireland final.

"It was difficult enough for us to get over the Dublin games. I would certainly think that mentally and physically they were the hardest team we played this year. It did take a while. But one thing we have been at fault for over the last few years is not giving the qualifiers the full push, that maybe mentally we weren't ready for it.

"I know that's the biggest cliché but we're just taking each game as it comes. We came up against Down and that was a vital game, especially after what went on the week before with Graham. And the same against Fermanagh. I was very worried about Fermanagh during the week. It was always going to be a tough game for us because Fermanagh had been a sort a monkey on our back for the last while. But we got over it, without playing to our best.

"So I think if we get over Galway it would give us a lot of confidence, and after that sure anything could happen. You're into the last eight. We'd be anxious to meet any team from then on."

Even as captain Moyles can only say so much about Meath's controversies of late. Geraghty's return to the panel this week after his training bust-up last month has been well documented and Moyles describes it as "all good", while Joe Sheridan's decision to opt out after the Dublin defeats was beyond anyone's control.

"In life everyone deserves a second chance. Graham came back to us, talked to the management, and they made a decision whether or not to bring him back. Maybe they felt he did the crime, and did the time. There was talk the players had the last say in the decision but that's far from the truth. We're all looking forward now, not back.

"With Joe it was just a case of losing the love of the game. It was a difficult choice for him, but when these guys make personal decisions like that you can't force them. So probably our bench has been taken away a little, but this week we've been entirely focused on the game. And this is a big, big game, and Meath do play better the bigger the game. Galway are one of those teams you just have to be up for.

"There are rumours going on about their problems, but Galway definitely have the forwards, still have the ability to turn over any team.

"But we've got the motivation and the mood is right. We'd love to get back into Croke Park and get a shot at a semi-final."

Ah yes, love them, loathe them or just fear them, it would be good to have Meath back.