Cork must be wary of wounded Meath in crucial All-Ireland group game on Saturday

There are lots of reasons for Meath to refocus ahead of Saturday’s All-Ireland SFC Group 2 Round 1 clash against Cork.

Páirc Tailteann in Navan is the venue for the crucial opening round game with throw-in at 3pm.

The Royal County will come into this one on the back of the painful Leinster final loss to Louth in Croke Park last Sunday week.

With Dublin finally out of the equation after 15 years courtesy of Meath’s semi-final win over them, it opened the door to lift silverware.

With all due respects to both Louth and Meath, it’s unlikely that they will win the All-Ireland soon, so winning the provincial championship was the next best thing for those counties.

The Wee County won by two points and the celebrations the whole country have seen since shows how much it meant to Louth. 68 years of hurt came to an end and for Meath, their pursuit of winning the cup will go into another year having last won the Delaney trophy in 2010.

There’s no doubt manager Robbie Brennan would have rallied the troops during the middle of last week, as he knows how important this opening game on Saturday is.

While three teams do qualify out of four in a group, there’s a sense that a lot hinges on Saturday’s encounter.

With Kerry and Roscommon coming down the track, a defeat for either side this weekend could be a hammer blow. More so for Meath you could say especially after losing the Leinster final.

For Cork, we all know what they are capable of against Kerry and Roscommon.

Another motivating factor for Meath on Saturday on top of trying to right the wrongs of the Leinster final is that they will want to perform better at home than their last All-Ireland group game against Munster opposition in Navan.

The Royal County were under the guidance of Colm O’Rourke previous to Brennan taking the helm last September. Meath got taken apart by Kerry with relative ease on a scoreline of 2-18 to 0-9 last year.

A quarter of the team that started against Kerry also started the Leinster final loss to Louth nine days ago, underlining what strides Meath have made since Brennan came in the door.

They are young and fearless as shown in front of a 65,786 crowd in Croker last week. They performed and were unlucky to come out on the wrong side. 

On the other side of the coin, they are inexperienced and Cork will want to start well on Saturday to see if there is still any Meath hangover from the defeat against Louth.