After the brawl is over . . .

• Published date: 18 March 2023

In December 1988, Meath hosted Dublin in a National Football League game at Páirc Tailteann. It remains the last time Dublin played a league or championship game against Meath in Navan. That 35-year anomaly will finally be rectified today

Dublin won the 1988 encounter, 1-12 to 0-4. In The Irish Times match report of that game, Paddy Downey wrote: "Fears that the almost hostile rivalry between these teams might lead to brawling were well founded. In a first half of heavy tackling, there were three ugly skirmishes and two players, Eamonn Heery of Dublin and Bernard Flynn of Meath, were sent to the line by referee Tommy Howard."

Flynn says it was the only time he got sent off in his Meath career. Heery recalls it as his sole red card for Dublin. It also cost Flynn an All Star. At the time, a sending off automatically made players ineligible for selection. As they trudged off the pitch, Heery made sure to let Flynn know he could wave goodbye to his All Star.

Given the incendiary friction between the counties, it might have been a flashpoint that ensured the two would share nothing else for the rest of their lives apart from a dollop of spite. But a trope of that Meath-Dublin rivalry was a grudging respect. In the years that followed, the pair became friends. They roomed together during an International Rules tour in Australia, Flynn was at Heery's wedding, and in a time of crisis Heery was at Flynn's side.

On a drizzly Saturday afternoon, we met in a Dublin city centre watering hole to chat football, rivalry, red cards, broken bodies and friendship. ***********

Gordon Manning: What do you remember of the 1988 game?

Bernard Flynn: I remember Dublin beat the bollocks out of us.

Eamonn Heery: You'd hammered us in the championship in 1987 and 1988, the league final too. That win in Navan was kind of a moment for us. The folklore goes that when we beat Meath that day, it was a marker.

GM: What about the sending off?

EH: This f***er tripped me up from behind, that's how it started.

BF: Is it?

EH: You tripped me.

BF: The row that day was one of the worst I've ever seen. I'd forgotten about th trip.

EH: Course you did, sure tripping lads wouldn't have been in your nature!

BF: Talk about tripping, Eamonn was always great at leaving a trailing leg or a little flick. [Liam]Harnan was decked that day, the Dublin lads got really stuck in. Tommy Carr started it, he was so annoyed after losing to us a couple of times that year, he started flaking. It was all-in then.

EH: There was murder at the other end of the field, so I was going down and the next thing he...