My generation are all used to staring down the Dubs and we believe the Leinster roost will be ruled by the Royals

RUAIRÍ READY TO BUILD ON STUNNING YEAR

- GARRY DOYLE

ON a damp Saturday morning in May, Ruairí Kinsella walked off a training pitch and felt bad news before he was told.

Something had shifted in. Meath. Something was wrong.

Joe McMahon was gone. Martin Corey was gone. Two men stepping off the train in the middle of a journey. Backroom doors slamming not closing.

The kind of news that moves through a dressing room by glances that linger and a silence that gets too loud.

"Big shock," Kinsella says now, almost gently, as if he's still handling the memory with care.

"No one expected it. It was kind of out of nowhere."

Robbie Brennan, still in his rookie year as an intercounty boss, gathered the panel together.

They talked. They did what teams always say they'll do but don't always manage: they decided to stay together. Heads down. Shoulders in.

Something in the loss of two voices gave them one of their own.

Brennan (inset) got louder. Not in volume, but in presence. The kind of manager who doesn't bark. He leans in.

"The way he spoke to us after that," Kinsella says, "the passion... that was a big factor."

Something that could have broken them gave them an edge instead.

Or, as Kinsella puts it, "maybe it was a blessing in disguise."