Colm O'Rourke: Meath are where we deserve to be

Meath manager Colm O'Rourke acknowledged that his charges "are where we deserve to be" after their Leinster championship exit to Offaly left them bound for this year's Tailteann Cup.

O'Rourke's side needed to reach a provincial decider to qualify for the Sam Maguire group phase after Clare's Munster SFC win over Cork had displaced them in the seedings, Meath already teetering following their sixth placed finish in Division 2.

However, a disastrous display of shooting in the first half saw them gift Offaly a nine-point lead at the break.

While the Royals rallied in the second period, they could only whittle down the margin to four points by the finish and Offaly progressed to the semis, the seven-time All-Ireland winners were shunted into the second tier competition.

"Well, everything went wrong, we weren't good enough on the day," O'Rourke told Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1.

"Simple as that, I don't make excuses. You get 70+ minutes to score more than the opposition and we didn't do so. We're not going to complain about anything.

"The lads prepared very well for it. We were very happy with the preparation. Obviously, a championship match like Offaly had against Longford was a big benefit. We were coming in cold. But in saying that, we thought we had prepared well.

"Our first half shooting was poor. It's been a problem we've had all year, we haven't been able to run up enough points. And it came back to haunt us today."

"Just because we had great teams in the past doesn't give us any right to be in the championship this year."

With exclusion from the All-Ireland series group phase now a reality for Meath, O'Rourke insisted his team would embrace the challenge provided by the Tailteann Cup.

The Meath boss acknowledged that just