FAITH was restored in the game of Gaelic football last Sunday, and soccer fans and rugby supporters were reminded that while they may gain entry to Croke Park occasionally, they can also be cast back into the role of second-class citizens in Irish sport at any time.

Unfortunately, those who profess that hurling is Ireland's one true sport, with an impeccable bloodline especially in Munster, will also have the blindingly obvious made clear to them next Sunday. When act two of Meath versus Dublin goes head-to-head on live TV with Waterford versus Cork in the Munster hurling championship, expect the latter encounter to get a right trouncing when the viewing figures are added up.

God, it felt good to be alive, and seated in Croker seven days ago. It felt good to be a Meathman, and it felt even better to be a Meathman living and working in Dublin. Compliments have been flying around the place and, whether they love the Meath football team or hate them, all sorts of people have been thankful. Just thankful that such a team exists, and incredibly happy that Graham Geraghty, warts and genius and menace and all, is still out there on the field at 34 years of age.

There were also complaints over the course of the last seven days about me.

Sure there were, as I knew there would be after I disclosed to Tribune readers just hours before last Sunday's mini epic that Meath football supporters had a secret desire to see Ciaran Whelan "laid out". Now, I've never spoken to or met Ciaran Whelan, but he appears to be a good bloke and an honest individual. To be truthful, I've always empathised with him as a midfielder as he's had to spend vast amounts of his time fending off accusations that he has dozed off for a large portion of his career as a footballer. I was hounded by the same 'judgement' for 12 years when I was in my Meath football boots. It's so annoying because once such a judgement has been reached, it's impossible ever to shake it off, unless you end up getting the ball every single minute for 70-plus minutes.

Which can't happen, naturally.

A great many things went right for Meath when Colm Coyle needed them to go right, but many things went dreadfully wrong and included in the minus column was the act of having to take Nigel Crawford off the field far too early in the second-half. Crawford is suppose to be the elder statesman on this Meath team, and having him replaced by a spanking new Meath midfielder (with barely time to take the wrapping off him) was not ideal. In an ideal world, Meath football folk and the lads in the Meath dressingroom, would have preferred Nigel Crawford to put Ciaran Whelan on the flat of his back in the early minutes of the game, in clear cold-blooded retribution for the punch the Dublin midfielder had KO'd him with two years previously. If he had done that, we would have had a different game in those opening 20 minutes, and not one in which Dublin were dictating almost every line of the field and tearing Meath apart as they built up a five-point lead.

We might have had the 'big man' of the Dublin team getting back on his feet knowing full well that the serious business had begun very early, and we would have had this young Meath team forcibly dragged into the game by the collars of their shirts. As it turned out, it took Meath 20 minutes to get over the introductions and 'arrive' into the contest.

It was not a great Meath performance which earned a draw in the dying seconds of added time last Sunday, not by a long shot, but it was thundering. It was also manly and fearless.

No tricks, No smoke, no mirrors. Just good old-style football which, in the end, demanded of every single Meath footballer on the field to stand up and be counted. Now, not everyone on Colm Coyle's team was good enough to do exactly that but, you know what, this Meath performance was summed up by someone nobody has really mentioned at all over the last week: Kevin Reilly. He looks like a defender and is a defender, but he played centre-forward. Kevin Reilly stood up and defended all day long, and any time he got the ball into his hands he whacked it 70 yards up the field and into an arc 30 yards out from the Dublin goalmouth - and I don't think he failed once to put the ball into that arc. Once the ball landed safely in the target area it was up to the Meath forwards to win the ball.

Of course, the game was pretty much all about Geraghty. But we knew that would be the case. We predicted on this page last Sunday morning that 'Geraghty' and 'goals' would win the game for Meath. His opening goal was a good one, and even though everyone is praising Jim McKee for letting this game flow beautifully, and it did, the man in the middle made a stinking bad decision in awarding a free out to Ross McConnell after Geraghty had brushed up against him. This was an atrocious refereeing decision. As the ball floated in between the two players, Geraghty clearly moved from behind the fullback to side-on, and never took his eyes off the flight of the ball. At the last second he did raise his left arm and it did definitely distract McConnell and force him to move slightly to one side, but this happens a hundred million times in games all over Ireland every Sunday.

And it's never a free.

It was a bad error and it robbed Meath of a 1-14 to 1-11 victory because Brogan's goal was perfectly legitimate in the first-half, and there was no question whatsoever of a foul on Geraghty in the second-half when he was sandwiched and lost the ball on the edge of Dublin's small square.

Meath are still going to win this game in my estimation, simply because they will have more firepower with the return of Brian Farrell. Another even share of possession in the middle of the field - and a similar outstanding performance from Mark Ward - and Meath might have it, but who on earth truly knows?

What we can be pretty certain about next Sunday evening, if we do have a winner, is that we have a winner from a battle between two 'mediocre-to-good' football teams, and that the All-Ireland is still many miles distant from either one of them.

We did, also, right here folks, forewarn readers last Sunday morning that Meath did not rate Dublin as a 'good Dublin team' and that The Dubs held a similar view of their nearest and dearest. Last Sunday showed that both teams were fairly right to have such an opinion of one another. However, Dublin now do have slightly more respect for Meath than they did before the game and that is a good thing for Meath. It will be of help to them knowing that Dublin are now living with greater fear of landing into the first round of the qualifiers.

As proud as I was to be a Meathman, I have to admit the Meath defence is still fairly dodgy, and will really be vulnerable to the darting runs and rummaging around which the likes of Jason Shelock can inflict on the game if he is fit and healthy to play in the replay. Midfield, from a Meath perspective, was saved by Ward, and the entire game was saved for Meath by a sub coming on and scoring a handful of death-defying points.

Cian Ward's massive role is, funnily enough, the most disturbing aspect of Meath's entire performance. In real life, and on really good football teams, substitutes should not have to do such things. However, Dublin have greater worries with the season now lengthening in front of them, and disappearing out of sight? They're in real danger of turning themselves into a crowd of jokers with this carry on - again, in real life good teams do not march in front of their own fans before the game starts, and great teams do not go five points up in each half and end up very thankful for a draw.

Are Dublin a serious football team, or are they a bunch of actors? That's the questions that's out there, bigger than ever before. The full-back line was dreadful at times, and at especially important times Bryan Cullen was nonexistent. Ciaran Whelan was average.

Alan Brogan was good. Conal Keaney was excellent. Not the report card you'd like to bring home to your mother.

By the way, Monaghan look like a team who can steal a good, solid run to the Ulster final, on the weaker side of the draw up north, which means I think they will get a win in Newry today.

My 'own' Carlow go toe-to-toe with Offaly in Portlaoise. I still feel incredible loyalty for my native county, whom I had the great honour of managing, and tell me I'm mad if you like but I often daydream of getting back and managing them again. .But this time they'd have to burn every county jersey in the place before I even stepped foot across the county boundary. Yeah, it would be good to be Carlow manager, but not today, definitely not today. It's going to be ugly and painful for my good friends.

INCOMING TODAY Munster SHC semi-final LIMERICK v TIPPERARY Gaelic Grounds, 2.00 TV Leinster SHC semi-final OFFALY v KILKENNY Portlaoise, 4.00 TV Ulster SFC quarter-finals MONAGHAN v DOWN Newry, 3.30 ANTRIM v DERRY Casement Park, 3.30 Leinster SFC quarter-final CARLOW v OFFALY Portlaoise, 2.10 SATURDAY, 16 JUNE Christy Ring Cup KERRY v MAYO Tralee, 3.00 WICKLOW v LONDON Arklow, 3.00 MEATH v WESTMEATH Paire Tailteann, 7.00 CARLOW v KILDARE Dr Cullen Park, 7.00 SUNDAY, 17 JUNE Munster SHC semi-final CORK V WATERFORD Semple Stadium, 4.00 TV Connacht SFC semi-final SLIGO v ROSCOMMON Hyde Park, 3.30 Ulster SFC semi-final TYRONE v DONEGAL Clones, 2.15 TV Leinster SFC quarter-finals LOUTH v WEXFORD Croke Park, 2.20 DUBLIN v MEATH Croke Park, 4.15 TV