Carla Rowe appreciating final build-up after 2022 hiatus

The 2022 season was novel territory for Carla Rowe.

For the first time in her eight year senior career, she would not spend All-Ireland final day in the bowels of Croke Park preparing for the match. Instead, she would be at home in north county Dublin in the company of her teammates, watching the game and trying not to ponder where things had gone wrong.

Having been smothered by the Donegal blanket in the quarter-final in Carrick-on-Shannon, the Dubs were disinterested spectators on finals day, for the first time since 2013, the year before Rowe joined the senior panel.

They generally steered clear of HQ that day, with Rowe hosting her team-mates in her house in Naul.

"The girls actually came to my house out in the Naul," Rowe told RTÉ Sport. "And we watched it together.

"The whole team, the whole panel. The garden was used as well [laughs].

"You'd definitely be watching it because, you know, it's the All-Ireland final and you want to be there.

"But I just thought in that year, it was such a shock for us and such a disappointment, we wanted to just get together quietly.

"It's hard when that final whistle goes and you know what that feeling is that Meath had. And jealousy I suppose comes in there and you want to be back there. But you use that to drive on forward."

Their Leinster foes Meath completed back-to-back, winning comfortably against this weekend's opponents Kerry in the decider.

So, to ask the critical question - who were the crowd in Rowe's gaff supporting?

"Hmmm... No comment."

In some respects, it felt like the end of an era for the Dublin team, who'd reached eight finals on the trot between 2014 and 2021, winning four-in-a-row from 2017 to 2020.

Sinead Goldrick, Ciara Trant and Lyndsey Davey were among those who stepped