It's safe to say that Meath won’t suffer another 40-point defeat to Cork on Saturday, but Monica McGuirk has a knack of expunging bitter memories in any event.
One of the results frequently referenced after Meath’s sensational All-Ireland win last September was their humiliating 7-22 to 0-3 qualifier defeat to Cork just six years earlier.
McGuirk was in goal for Meath that day, but she had to be reminded of that fact at yesterday’s Lidl Ladies National Football League launch, as the Rebelettes come to Navan this weekend.
“God, maybe I was,” she laughed. “I was playing my soccer career then. Do you know what, as a goalkeeper, when one goal goes on your head drops. It’s so hard to stay focused.
“No matter how the goals go in, or how many, ultimately you feel like you’re the one to blame. As I got older, the more games I was playing and the level I was playing at, I trained my brain to know when the goal goes in whether it was my fault or whether it should have been closed down sooner.
“I trained my brain to know when it was my fault or look, I couldn’t get that. You can only save so much. It has to get through 14 players before it gets to you.
“Years ago I would have took it very much to heart. That would have been inexperience. As the years went on, especially the last four or five with Meath, I knew not to drop the head or it could have a major impact.
“A lot of people would say the goalkeeping position is the most important position on the pitch. If you’re not focused, it can have a massive impact.
“To be honest with you, I remember the scoreline but I can’t remember the game specifically, like.
“I suppose at that time I would have been devastated and I would have been gutted for us losing that game but, like I said there, I had to start training my brain to block those things out but also reflect on them to make sure that they don’t happen again and thankfully it didn’t.”
Last July, Meath suffered a two-point loss to Cork in Birr in the group stage of the All-Ireland Championship, but turned the tables on them in remarkable fashion in the semi-final, hitting two injury time goals to snatch victory.
McGuirk isn’t so sure that they’d have gone on the subsequent run had they taken spoils at St Brendan’s Park that day, however.
“We knew if we had to cut out the small little errors or get that other extra five or 10% in our own performances that we could have went on and won the game so thinking back now, in hindsight, it probably was the best outcome because if we had beaten Cork that day would what happened in Croke Park in the semi-final have happened?
“I always believe things happen for a reason. We obviously wanted to beat Cork in the first round of the Championship but obviously to go on and beat them the way we did in the semi-final was even that more sweeter.”
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