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Seamus Lavin: Meath's seismic Kerry win, 'A shock to everyone else, not to us.'
Seamus Lavin says Meath have to push on from yet another huge victory and 'make it a brilliant year.'
Robbie Brennan's Royals have been one of the stories of the summer, turning over Dublin, Cork and now Kerry in Championship football.
The Dublin and Kerry victories were seismic shocks that rocked the GAA world, with last weekend's 1-22 to 0-16 triumph over the Kingdom sending Meath straight into the All-Ireland quarter-finals as group winners.
The one downside from last week was the loss of in-from inside forward James 'Banty' Conlon, while Matthew Costello is in a race against time to be fit for the quarter-final.
Robbie Brennan confirmed that a hamstring issue, picked up in the last play of Meath training last Thursday night, has ended Conlon's season with the county.
Nonetheless, it's full steam ahead for Croke Park in a fortnight and a first All-Ireland quarter final since 2019, when Meath featured in the 'Super 8s' under Andy McEntee.
'It's a brilliant win, but we can't just rest on our laurels,' Meath defender Seamus Lavin told LMFM. 'We have got to push on. We've got to be aiming higher than a quarter-final. Let's make it a brilliant year and push on.'
The one thing lacking to date is silverware, and the only trophy left to win for the 2023 Tailteann Cup champions is the Sam Maguire.
Meath are eighth favourites with the bookies at 22/1, behind Armagh (16/5), Kerry (7/2), Donegal (9/2), Dublin (5/1), Tyrone (6/1), Galway (7/1) and Monaghan (18/1).
Their weekend victory at Tullamore was only Kerry's second defeat in nine group stage games across three years, with the other loss coming in Round 1 against Mayo back in 2023.
Last year when the sides met in Round 2 of the same competition at Navan, Kerry hammered Meath, winning by 2-18 to 0-9.
Even though Kerry were without Paudie Clifford, Paul Geaney, Diarmuid O'Connor and Brian O Beaglaoich at the weekend, very few gave Meath a chance.
On the day it also emerged that Sean O'Shea was out for Kerry, but Meath had significant losses of their own with Costello and Conlon -nicknamed 'Banty' - added to an injury list that already includes Jack Flynn and Ronan Jones.
Jones is out for the season after undergoing surgery on a hamstring problem.
'Definitely one for the ages,' said Lavin of the Kerry win. 'But I think similar to the Dublin game, probably a shock to everyone else, but certainly not to us. We came here with belief and I think you absolutely saw that in spades.
'It was talk of, 'At least we have a home preliminary in Navan,' but that's not what we wanted. We wanted to get into a quarter-final and you definitely seen that.
'I think we definitely wanted to rip up the script to a certain extent. It was tough to lose Mattie and Banty during the week.
'But you seen guys there like Keith Curtis - anyone else coming in - they just stepped up to the plate so that's the strength in depth that we do have.'
Lavin says there is a resolve and togetherness to the current Meath side.
'Unbelieveable, it's hard to put into words how good it was,' said Lavin. 'To be fair, the level of camaraderie up there and togetherness.
'I've been involved with a couple of Meath squads and the level that it's at this year is monumental.
'I think I'll probably give credit to the guys, the likes of Robbie, Conor (Gillespie), (Shane) Supple and them guys, who just do unbelievable work in terms of preparation and everything else. You can see that come to the fore.'
Sean Rafferty has been a revelation for Meath this year and picked up David Clifford at the weekend.
'David Clifford is David Clifford,' said Lavin. 'Look, I thought Raff did a terrific job on him and all year we have tried to focus on team defence and backing the man up. I think you seen that.
'We really focused on closing up that channel and no goals was what we obviously went after. That's what came to fruition.'
Meath had a shaky spell after half-time when Cathal Hickey was black carded straight from the throw-in and Kerry tagged on three scores to cut the deficit to three points.
But Lavin feels they are learning and that they handled that spell well.
'I was delighted to see that bit of game management that we may have been maybe lacking when we look back to the Leinster Final.
'I am not so sure we had that in the final, in the closing minutes. We worked on that. It's not something that has come overnight. I think you need to learn those lessons. We've pushed on from the Leinster Final.
'I think you see we really managed that. We held onto the ball. Just brilliant to see it.'
