Robbie Brennan's sales pitch has Meath football believing in itself again
THE NEW PITCH in Newbridge got pretty chewed up over the winter, so the stadium announcer ordered supporters to stay off it after Kildare’s recent NFL game against Meath.
Home fans mostly complied, although Meath supporters streamed onto the surface in big numbers. Emotions can be hard to contain when you’ve just torpedoed your neighbours by 14 points.
Robbie Brennan completed a TV interview on the field afterwards before stopping every couple of yards to chat with a young fan in green and gold.
By the time the beaming Meath manager eventually made it back to the dressing room, the party had already started, a giant speaker booming out the tunes. We are reliably informed that Jordan Morris and Keith Curtis control the setlist.
Brennan has certainly got his team singing a sweet tune, with the win over Kildare being Meath’s 14th from 21 League and Championship games since he took over, three of those coming at the expense of Division 1 opposition.
For context, Meath hadn’t beaten a Division 1 team in 10 years before he took the reins.
Derry, whom Meath beat in January, can be included in that elite bracket, as can Tyrone, last season’s All-Ireland semi-finalists whom Meath will play at Croke Park on Saturday evening.
Robbie Brennan. James Lawlor / INPHO
James Lawlor / INPHO / INPHO
If things had gone just a little differently last year, and both Meath and Tyrone had won their respective semi-finals, then this would have been a rematch of the 2025 Sam Maguire Cup decider.
That’s a bit of a leap, admittedly, but Brennan has dragged Meath into that national conversation again, and in less than 25 games in total.
How he has done it goes back to those scenes in Newbridge on the last evening of February when he posed for pictures with young fans and joshed with local media before jumping into interviews.
He didn’t give a whole pile away and smiled his way through it all, a lot like his neighbour in Dunboyne, Sean Boylan, used to do. Brennan is a salesman by trade and here he was doing what he does best, selling a vision and convincing everyone around him to come along for the ride.
The first challenge was to get the best players on board. For whatever reason, Seamus Lavin and Bryan Menton didn’t play a minute of the Colm O’Rourke era, between 2023 and 2024. Jack Flynn sat out the majority of O’Rourke’s final season. Under Brennan, Lavin and Menton have started all 21 of those League and Championship games across 2025 and 2026 while Flynn, perhaps their best player so far this season, only missed the five games he did last summer due to a serious hamstring injury.
Jack Flynn has arguably been Meath's best player this season. James Lawlor / INPHO
James Lawlor / INPHO / INPHO
Assembling the cast is only one aspect of the production he has put together though. The man who turned Kilmacud Crokes into a results machine in Dublin, Leinster and beyond, often grinding teams down in low-scoring possession-based games, despite having the attacking riches to apparently cut loose at any time of their choosing, has had to carefully choreograph that cast and hand them a workable script.
Firstly, he embraced the new rules wholeheartedly.When the 12 v 11 tactic was a possibility for the first five games of last year’s league, Meath capitalised on the chance to use Billy Hogan as an auxiliary outfield player, winning four of those matches.
Two-point scores quickly became Meath’s calling card, realising early on that loading up the full-forward line was a useful way of freeing up space around the arc. Only twice in those 21 games under Brennan have Meath not registered a two-pointer. And they still found a way to win both of those games, against Cork and Galway in last year’s Championship.
Switching goalkeepers this season, from Hogan to Seán Brennan, who has only conceded three goals in Division 2, yet scored 0-9, all from two-point frees and a 45, is another move that has paid off.
Sean Brennan is Meath's new number one. Tom Maher / INPHO
Tom Maher / INPHO / INPHO
Playing with three midfielders – Flynn, Menton and Cian McBride or Adam O’Neill – has helped them establish dominance in the increasingly vital middle third. As has the apparently deeper role being played by captain Eoghan Frayne, an on-field coach who is constantly encouraging, cajoling and directing the players around him. Another tactical tweak around midfield has been to split the midfielders and isolate them in one v ones for kick-outs.
If it all sounds like some sort of straightjacket that Brennan and his management have foisted upon the players, it is far from it. More of a loose template, a canvas of sorts for the players to apply their own broad brush strokes of genius.
“The more you control, the less you can create,” said Brennan ahead of last year’s All-Ireland semi-final against Donegal. “It’s that kind of approach.”
The surging runs of Ciarán Caulfield and Donal Keogan against Kildare underlined that freedom to play with expression. Jordan Morris crystallises the approach, scoring 1-4 in the win over Cavan but also blasting two wides that day and dropping three more point attempts short. At one stage against Cavan, Morris arrowed a pass directly across the pitch, from the number 12 to number 10 position, off the outside of his left boot.
Against Louth in their next game, at Croke Park, when Morris struck six points, he tried an ambitious long kick pass from the number 15 position way back out to the number 11 area which was intercepted.
Under the old rules, that would have amounted to footballing suicide. Under Brennan, it’s the sort of freedom to crack a few eggs that’s accepted in the pursuit of the perfect omelette.
It’s why Flynn felt so comfortable when taking on those massive two-point opportunities that won Meath the games against both Cavan and Louth.
“We have put huge trust in the players in so many areas, in how we play and how we set up,” said Brennan in advance of this weekend’s Tyrone game.
“And obviously the coaches are phenomenal at what they do so it’s a pretty good marriage when you have that. You’re always trying to get the players to lead as much as they possibly can, and they do that from session to session.”
Graham Geraghty and Philip Jordan: Meath haven't beaten Tyrone in league or championship since 2007. Cathal Noonan / INPHO
Cathal Noonan / INPHO / INPHO
They’re not the finished article, of course. And there are no guarantees Meath will beat a Tyrone side that they have consistently struggled with over the years. Meath actually possessed a perfect record against Tyrone in the Championship as recently as 2007, after defeating the Ulster side in that season’s All-Ireland quarter-final.
But they’ve met seven times since then, three times in the Championship and four times in the League, and the Royals haven’t won once. No finer time than now for Meath to claim a statement win and to move within touching distance of a return to Division 1, proving that something special really is happening under the new Brennan regime.
