Kerry legend Aidan O’Mahony has challenged Colm O’Rourke to put his name forward for the vacant Meath senior football post.
Andy McEntee walked away after six years in charge following the weekend qualifier defeat by Clare.
O’Rourke, Malachy O’Rourke, Jim McGuinness and Meath’s All-Ireland winning minor manager, Cathal Ó Bric are among those who have been linked with the post.
RTE pundit O’Rourke has said in the past that he’s gone for the job, but no agreement was reached with the Meath County Board.
Speaking to Paddy Power, O’Mahony said: “A lot of people have been saying that Colm O’Rourke has been talking a lot about the Meath team and that he should throw his hat into the ring for the job?
“And I think, ‘Why not?’. If he gets a good group with him, absolutely.
“I think they’ve plenty of options but I think you need to go from the grassroots first and start building up your team.”
The Rathmore man also suggested that by appointing O’Rourke the Royal County could make similar strides to their near-neighbours Kildare.
“Meath is such a big place and people are talking about the great Meath teams from 20 years ago,” he said.
“It doesn’t happen overnight and I think they need something like Kildare did in bringing in Glenn Ryan - a guy who has an unbelievable status in Kildare.
“Already in his first year, they’re building something so I think Meath need to do that as well.
“Sometimes it’s good to bring in past players but you also need to bring in that underage structure.
“Most importantly, you need to have a County Board that gives that manager every backing that he needs”.
Speaking of the departing McEntee, two-time All-Star, O’Mahony said: “It’s like the great saying goes, ‘who’d want to be a manager?’
“When things go great, it’s the players and when things go wrong, it’s the manager’s fault.
“He’s been there for six seasons and he brought them up to Division 1.
“But I think the hardest thing for Meath under Andy McEntee was their performances in Leinster.
“He probably came along when Dublin were at their prime and they were absolutely hammering teams.”
He continued: “Maybe his philosophy of changing teams didn’t stand to him but sometimes you have to look at the players as well.
“I think there’s a lot of soul searching which will have to come from the top down from the County Board.
“When you lose, it falls at your door and while I’ve no doubt he loved Meath football, at the end of the day you’re judged on results and that’s unlucky for him.”
Meanwhile, the five-time All-Ireland winner is firmly of the belief that it will be either Dublin or Kerry climbing the steps of the Hogan next month.
“While there’s 12 teams still in the All Ireland, I still think the winners will come from the Dublin/Kerry semi-final,” he said.
“We’re scratching our heads down in Kerry wondering have Dublin gone away because they’ve been waiting in the long grass.
“I think the Dubs will be a lot more confident than they were, say a month ago, and the talk is that their training camp abroad went very well.
“Sometimes it’s about freshness and Con O’Callaghan is the type of player who, when he comes in, he changes the whole dimension of the group.
“They mightn’t be the team that they were but they haven’t gone away - that’s for sure.”
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