This year was no different until Dublin and Meath went at it a couple of weeks back and to me it was a breath of fresh air. For the first time in quite a while I found myself moving onto the edge of a plastic seat at Croke Park with my heart racing, not knowing what was going to happen next. It is days like that which make football great.

To be honest, going up we weren't exactly hopeful. I think most Meath people will tell you they wanted to avoid a trimming. Get somewhere near Dublin, leave it at that and get out of there as quickly as possible. There would have been plenty of positives in such an outcome and sure how could we hope for anymore? Things haven't gone so well in recent years, I believe because there was too much publicised. The entire Meath set-up seemed to never leave the papers. Any little thing went to the media. If there was any trouble at training it was there, it was getting to the stage that if the wind changed direction it was there. Nothing can be worse for a football team when that starts happening. Minds stop focusing on the task at hand and that was clearly the case.

You need to keep a closed shop and keep going and keep things to yourself.

This year that has changed.

I'm sure there are still rows at training and disagreements. It was certainly like that when I was playing but we kept too ourselves and I think a few of us enjoyed it. There'd be a bad tackle or somebody would be left off or whatever it was, but if you haven't got that you are in trouble as well. If you have 15 regulars and that's it you won't have competition and you won't have guys coming in from the side like Cian Ward and bringing games back from the edge.

To see him do that actually took back to 1991 and the most enjoyable time I ever had as a footballer. I didn't think this group had it in them because you can train all you like but to play in a situation like that, it is down to experience and having been there before.

Thankfully when we were going well we were full of players who could bring a game back and this team apparently is like that as well.

In saying that, I don't think Meath can afford to let Dublin loose again. They were dominant at the beginning of both halves. They won a lot of ball in the middle and kicked a lot of points and I think if they had added a goal in those dominant spells that would have been it over. Meath especially have to look closely at Alan Brogan. He wins a huge amount of ball and if he's not putting it over the bar he's winning kickable frees. A few people have asked me what I would have done against a player like him but it was very different in my day. He would have been too quick for me but there are plenty of ways to get a headstart on a quicker man.

We were never great starters ourselves but we knew how to hang in there and keep it close. That's the sign of a good team in my mind. The opposition will always come at you and have a spell no matter how good you are, and if you can repel them, you win. If Dublin start doing that then they can start to think of All Irelands and that is up to the players on the pitch, nobody else can do that for them. But at the minute they are a long way off an All Ireland and have a lot of work to do.

Still though, if I was a gambling man I'd have to back Dublin today. They won't like that around Summerhill but as long as the game is anywhere near as good as the last day, I'll come home happy regardless of the result.

Meath lads will learn from this no matter the outcome.

They have shown themselves to have ability and the right attitude and that can only bode well for the future and for many more games against Dublin. I hope so anyway because I've always enjoyed a game between the two of them.

Mick Lyons is a former Meath full-back who won two All Irelands and five Leinster titles during his 14 seasons.

In conversation with Ewan MacKenna