A dejected Meath manager Colm O’Rourke near the end of the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship defeat to Louth at Grattan Park in Inniskeen, Monaghan. Photo by Daire Brennan/Sportsfile
Meath manager Colm O’Rourke revealed that Mathew Costello insisted on playing against Louth despite his father Paul passing away on the morning of the game.
Speaking to reporters after Louth had run out convincing winners in Inniskeen, O’Rourke stated the Dunshaughlin man was eager to play in the fixture where he kicked the first score of the game.
“It struck a very sombre note when we met today that Mat’s dad had just passed away,” said the Meath boss.
“We said to him if he didn’t want to play not to come, that we were completely understanding of that. But he was insistent that he wanted to play and we accommodated that. I wouldn’t use it as an excuse, once the team went on the pitch they had to get in with it and unfortunately it didn’t work out very well in that regard.”
Meath were hit for three first half goals as Louth turned in a dominant showing, eventually running out 3-10 to 0-9 winners for their first championship win over their neighbours since 1975. The Royals have just a week to prepare for the visit of Kerry to Navan.
“The first 15 or 20 minutes we looked as if we were going quite well and thought we largely controlled the early part of the game. But once they got the first goal the doubts crept into our team and they very much built on that. Goals win games and they got them at the right time.
“The performance was very poor and we got the result from a very poor performance. No complaints. Louth were very good, really out fought us. We had thought that we might have an edge in that regard and I think that Louth out-thought us, out-fought us, out-worked us in the game so no complaints – very disappointing performance from our team.”
