1999 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final

1999 All-Ireland Senior Football Final

Event	1999 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship
Meath Cork 1-11 1-8
Date	26 September 1999
Venue	Croke Park, Dublin
Referee	Mick Curley (Galway)
Attendance	63,276

The 1999 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final was the 112th All-Ireland Final and the deciding match of the 1999 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, an inter-county Gaelic football tournament for the top teams in Ireland. Meath defeated Cork to claim the last All-Ireland football final of the Millennium.^[1]

Pre-match

Meath had "unquestionably" played more key games at Croke Park in the 1990s than any other Leinster county.^[2]

Cork's Seán Óg Ó hAilpín went into the match aiming to emulate Teddy McCarthy's achievement of winning two senior All-Ireland championship medals in the same season.^[3]

Match

Meath won by three points, recovering from the double blow of a penalty miss and the concession of a spectacular Joe Kavanagh goal at the start of the second half to eventually take control and win in style.^[4] It was Trevor Giles that missed the penalty.^[5] Kevin O'Dwyer, in the Cork goal, saved the penalty.^[6] If Giles had scored, Meath would have been two goals clear -- Cork counterattacked, scored a point, then a goal.^[7]

Cork had almost 60% of the possession and were in control of the game for most of the first half, yet still lost.^[8] The average age of the Cork team was just over 23.^[9] Trevor Giles scored a crucial 45 eleven minutes from the end; the score put Meath one point ahead.^[10] Graham Geraghty captained Meath to victory and raised the Sam Maguire Cup aloft.^[11] The manager of the Meath team that day was Sean Boylan.^[12] Giles was viewed as "dictating the shape of the large picture like a director of epic movies."^[13] The performance of Meath's Mark O'Reilly was also praised.^[14]

"Some of the widest wides ever seen in Croke Park this century" occurred during the game.^[15]

Cork player Joe Kavanagh said it was as bad as the 1993 defeat.^[16]

Legacy

Meath's second All-Ireland football title of the decade following their success in 1996, they were joint "team of the decade" for the 1990s with Down who won two titles in 1991 and 1994.^[17] Meath footballer Cormac Murphy, who afterwards expressed his relief that he had not retired before the game, said "I don't know. I don't think this achievement will make us team of the nineties. You have Down, you have Cork again, there have been a lot of good teams. Ask me again this time next year."^[18]

References