Matthew Costello: Meath can return to the top of the tree

Emerging Meath forward Matthew Costello passionately believes that the Royals can return to the top of the footballing tree despite their recent travails.

This Sunday, Dublin and Louth will battle it out for the Leinster title at Croke Park. The evening before, Meath host Tipperary in Navan in the Tailteann Cup with the side confined to the tier-two competition after their sixth-place finish in Division 2 and inability to reach the provincial decider.

It's shone further light on a county already struggling to escape the shadow of Dublin recent times.

Meath lifted their 20th Leinster title in 2001, at a time when Dublin had 43 successes to their name. Since then, the Royals have lifted the Delaney Cup once – in 2010 – while their neighbours have triumphed on 18 further occasions.

Costello is part of a group trying to change that narrative though, captaining the county to a Leinster minor title five years ago while in 2021 Meath also won the All-Ireland at that level.

"I fully believe we can," was his response when asked could Meath get back to the top.

"Especially the guys coming through, we have had some success and we can back ourselves and believe in ourselves. If the right structures continue to be put in place, we can get back to the top.

"There is a real positive flow of teams coming through at minor level, unfortunately it hasn’t come through at 20s level yet, but the players are still there. If we have the right system in place, [we can] get something going."

"I think it is a long-term work in progress," he added. "We are quite a young team and even this year, we got a few injuries at bad times, right in the middle of the National League at a time when maybe we needed that bit more experience, lads just picked up