Emerging Meath forward Matthew Costello passionately believes that the Royals can return to the top of the footballing tree despite their recent travails.
This Sunday, Dublin and Louth will battle it out for the Leinster title at Croke Park. The evening before, Meath host Tipperary in Navan in the Tailteann Cup with the side confined to the tier-two competition after their sixth-place finish in Division 2 and inability to reach the provincial decider.
It's shone further light on a county already struggling to escape the shadow of Dublin recent times.
Meath lifted their 20th Leinster title in 2001, at a time when Dublin had 43 successes to their name. Since then, the Royals have lifted the Delaney Cup once – in 2010 – while their neighbours have triumphed on 18 further occasions.
Costello is part of a group trying to change that narrative though, captaining the county to a Leinster minor title five years ago while in 2021 Meath also won the All-Ireland at that level.
"I fully believe we can," was his response when asked could Meath get back to the top.
"Especially the guys coming through, we have had some success and we can back ourselves and believe in ourselves. If the right structures continue to be put in place, we can get back to the top.
"There is a real positive flow of teams coming through at minor level, unfortunately it hasn’t come through at 20s level yet, but the players are still there. If we have the right system in place, [we can] get something going."
"I think it is a long-term work in progress," he added. "We are quite a young team and even this year, we got a few injuries at bad times, right in the middle of the National League at a time when maybe we needed that bit more experience, lads just picked up long-term injuries that left them out for the year.
"But we are young, we are fresh, we have had success at under-age and stuff like that, so we kind of know that we are at a high enough level that if we can get the right formula with the players and the management team, the sky is the limit and we can make a run in the provincial championships, but firstly in the Tailteann Cup."
Costello was speaking at the launch of that Tailteann Cup at Croke Park, and he said that nobody in Colm O’Rourke’s dressing room would be looking down their noses at it.
"There is definitely not that mentality, we put ourselves in this position," he said.
"We knew at the start of the year that the league was very important, [we] knew that league position was going to be crucial to take the pressure off in the Leinster championship and then we knew our fate with our league position, that if we lost to Offaly, we would be in the Tailteann Cup.
"Unfortunately, we lost and we put ourselves in this position and I think the focus of the group is to restore a little bit of pride in ourselves, get a few wins and develop and build for the next few games, [get a] good run of form and you don’t know where that could take you."
Rivals Westmeath were the inaugural winners of the Tailteann Cup - and Costello said it would be nice to follow their neighbour’s lead.
"I suppose any fans I have met, they have been very positive. They see this as an opportunity for the group to grow and especially if we get a run, I think the Meath support will get behind the team.
"We saw what happened with Westmeath last year, they got a great following in big games. I think Meath people love getting to Navan and love getting to Croke Park, so I don’t see why they wouldn’t travel this time if we get there."
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