Meath ladies senior team manager Eamon Murray.

Gowna native leads Meath ladies to historic success in Croke Park

The Royals’ inspirational manager, Eamon Murray, is a native of Gowna

There was a strong Cavan connection to Meath ladies’ magnificent triumph in the All-Ireland SFC final over five-in-a-row chasing Dublin.

The Royals’ inspirational manager, Eamon Murray, is a native of Gowna and won a Junior Championship medal at corner-forward in 1982.

Meath came into the match as huge underdogs but delivered a masterful performance. Having won the intermediate All-Ireland last year, they cracked the senior code at the first attempt in what must surely rank as one of the greatest achievements in the history of Gaelic games.

“We need to forget about the bad days, those bad days are gone thank God,” said Murray. “These are heroes and will be heroes for life if they never kick another ball. They’ll go down in history now. I never questioned for one minute that they wouldn’t win.

“They’re (Dublin) a class outfit, an unbelievable team. To be the best you have to beat the best and we certainly did that today. We were by far the best team today.

“We had the luck with us all year but it’s not luck when you beat all of these top teams. They’re a very special bunch of players I’m dealing with here.

They’ve come a long way, this is as high as it goes so where do we go from here?”

Meath were Lidl National Football League Division 3 champions in May 2019, and after the Covid-19 affected campaign that followed, won Division 2, narrowly beating Cavan in the semi-final.