Andy McEntee admitted that it’ll be difficult to regroup after their Leinster final pummeling from Dublin.
Beaten Leinster finalists have an exceptionally poor record in the final round of the qualifiers with Kildare in 2009 being the last time a team bounced back from losing a provincial decider to reach the last eight of the Championship.
The Royals will compete in round four on the weekend of July 6/7 where a victory would secure their best Championship run since 2010.
Meath manager McEntee had insisted ahead of yesterday’s game that it wouldn’t define their year whatever the outcome, though it was more difficult for him to cling to that line in the immediate aftermath of yesterday’s defeat.
“I don't know, I don't know is the answer,” he said when asked if that still held true. “We haven't been in this position before.
“It'll be interesting to see how fellas react. We were one game away from the ‘Super 8s’ last week, we're one game away from it this week.
“Ultimately not a whole pile has changed. It will be a fair test of resolve and a fair test of character to come back from a defeat like that.”
McEntee rued Meath’s inability to get the scoreboard moving yesterday, particularly when they had chances to do so in the first half.
“We needed to be able to put Dublin under pressure and it's fair to say we didn’t really manage that at any stage of the game.
“We had more shots at goal in the first half than they had, we had 11 they had nine. But we had one score on the board at the end of 35 or 36 minutes of play and that says a lot really.”
Their defensive effort was to be commended until the floodgates opened late on, however.
McEntee continued: “I thought we competed pretty well all over the pitch, there was a lot of good one-on-one contests, we defended reasonably well, the full-back line defended pretty well and we had more than our fair share of possession we just didn’t convert it.
“The truth is Dublin were never really under pressure because we didn’t put the scores on the board.”
He added: “We’ve just got to get used to dealing and playing with teams of that standard and there’s not too many teams out there of that standard, let’s be honest about it.
“And that’s why we said all along, our goal was to get to the ‘Super 8s’ where you’re playing teams of a higher standard than us on a consistent basis.
“There’s probably a lesson out there for everybody. Not too many guys have played against that Dublin team at this stage.”
