Pat Spillane’s verdict on Sunday’s big GAA showdowns

Dublin v Meath Croke Park, 4:30pm

I could regale you with stories of the glory days of their great championship clashes and how close and competitive those matches were.

I could remind you that Meath were the last team to beat Dublin in the Leinster Championship, but if I continued in this vein, you’d know I was stringing you along and trying to build up hype of a serious contest, but I don’t think it is going to happen.

The bookies rarely get it wrong: the Dubs are 1/50, Meath 12/1. Clutching at straws, I could say that scoring 3-19 v Longford was a fair tally and that coming up to last Sunday, they were the second-lowest scorers in Division 2.

The more worrying stat, however, is the 3-12 they conceded to a Division 4 outfit in Longford. Their defence was porous, their goalie suspect. And Dublin will have noted that most of the scoring came from James Conlon and Eoghan Freyne, with 2-11 between them. They won’t be getting the freedom of the park today.

To heighten the anxiety, I could pinpoint some Dublin weakness I saw in the league final – like their defence, their vulnerability to counter-attacks. But look, I won’t cod you anymore. The champions have had two weeks of a break.

They are going for 14 Leinster titles in a row. The Derry defeat would have been a kick in the pants. Expect a reaction today. Meath to suffer. Dublin by seven or eight points.

Louth v Wexford Laois Hire O’Moore Park, 4pm

In fairness to Wexford, 4-19 v Carlow is a fair tally, a 23-point victory, coming on the back of a five-match unbeaten run and unlucky not to be promoted to Division 3.

So they have momentum. I fancy Louth, however, as they operated two divisions higher in tier two, and while they had four defeats, closer inspection showed they were unlucky, one-point losses to Armagh and Cavan, a two-point defeat by Meath and a five-point reverse to Armagh.

I saw them against Kildare in the last round of the league and was impressed. I thought Ger Brennan might struggle after the Mickey Harte era. He hasn’t. They are coming along quite nicely and should win.

Kildare v Wicklow Laois Hire O’Moore Park, 1.45pm

Two counties who come into the match in contrasting moods, Wicklow upbeat after beating Westmeath, while Kildare are most certainly down in the doldrums after a miserable league campaign that saw them relegated to Division 3 and be the only county along with Limerick that had no points, as well as being the lowest scorers in the top two divisions.

To be perfectly honest, every time I watched them, they looked aimless, with no game plan at all. So you would say it’s Wicklow after the win over Westmeath, where they looked good defensively and were well organised, with plenty of confidence.

They won’t come across as open and naive a team as Westmeath, who gave them the wind in the first half and the kick-out. For Kildare, the only way is up. In last year’s clash, they defeated Wicklow by ten points; it might not be ten points this time, but I think they will repeat the win.

Armagh v Fermanagh Brewster Park, 2pm

First off, the positives for Fermanagh. They have home advantage. They were unlucky in the league after getting five points and still being relegated; in any of the other three divisions, five points would have meant survival.

They were unfortunate to drop points in some games, when beaten by a point by Cork and conceding two late points in the draw with Meath. But there were two performances that would make me worry: a 24-point hammering by Louth and a 14-point drubbing by Donegal, 2-16 to 0-8.

Armagh come in on the back of a poor league final defeat and performance against Donegal. Yet again, another big-match collapse by Armagh. But this is Kieran McGeeney’s tenth year in charge. There is no championship silverware, even though they were unlucky at times.

They are at the last chance saloon. If there’s no Ulster title this year, it is hard to imagine him and his team staying on. While Fermanagh are a hard nut to crack in Enniskillen, I still fancy Armagh by five or six points.

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