Former Kerry star says that Meath defeat was on the cards

Irish Daily Mirror

8 hours ago

Mike Quirke says that he feared that Kerry were vulnerable to Meath last weekend given the injuries to 'guys that hold the standards'.
In the end, Kerry slipped to a nine-point loss in Tullamore which allowed Meath to advance straight to an All-Ireland quarter-final, while Jack O'Connor's side must play a preliminary quarter-final at home to Cavan on Saturday to earn a last eight spot.
The Munster champions were without Sean O'Shea, Paudie Clifford, Paul Geaney, Diarmuid O'Connor, Barry Dan O'Sullivan and Brian Ó Beaglaoich through injury, but few were predicting that they would go under having not lost a Championship game to Leinster opposition other than Dublin since Meath famously trounced them in the 2001 All-Ireland semi-final.
Quirke was a four-time All-Ireland winner with Kerry in the 2000s and was part of O'Connor's management team when they won their last title in 2022.
'I was worried about this game,' he told Off The Ball. 'I still thought Kerry might have enough to get over the line but I was concerned given that long list of injured players that Kerry were travelling with and while every team has injuries and Meath had injuries themselves, the guys that were injured for Kerry are of such high quality and are the guys that kind of hold the standards of the rest of the group.
'So you're losing their impact on the game but you're also losing their impact in terms of their leadership and everything else and Kerry were found wanting and Robbie Brennan and Meath did a super job again.
'After taking out Dublin, nobody gave them much of a chance of topping the group and beating Kerry and in all reality they were comfortable. They were never really under much pressure after maybe 20 minutes of the first half, where Kerry had taken an early lead.
'After that, they got to grips around the middle of the field, they won kickout after kickout after kickout and that became their platform for a dominant win really.'
Former Kerry captain Billy O'Shea was scathing in his assessment of the performance while on Radio Kerry duty last weekend, likening it to that implosion against Meath 24 years ago.
He said: 'I would normally be a bit conservative because I respect anybody who puts on the green and gold, and I know the commitments that players make and the sacrifices that players make.
'But a lot of what we saw today was rubbish. It's time to call a spade a spade. We lacked an awful lot of passion. Turnover, soft turnovers. We had no bit of direction. We had no game plan. Towards the end of that game, they were dictating things exactly like they did in 2001.'