Colm O'Rourke stepped down as Meath manager last week and said that he was not given enough time to assemble a new backroom team.
The Meath legend won The Tailteann Cup in his first year, but failed to build on that success the following season, as they suffered disappointing defeats in the Leinster and All-Ireland championship.
The Royal County was once a superpower in Gaelic football, but it has been a long time since it has been competitive at the top level, and now the search continues once again to find a new manager who can bring them back to the glory days.
Kerry legend Pat Spillane worked alongside O'Rourke for decades on The Sunday Game panel as they often debated, agreed, laughed, and bickered back and forth on TV for our entertainment.
Writing in his Sunday World column, the Kerryman admitted that they weren't the best of friends on a personal level, but that Meath have made a big mistake in letting him go as manager.
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I don’t think we ever socialised outside the studio,” Spillane clarified in his Sunday World column.
“But I can say he is a very shrewd man who has an excellent football brain and is a very good reader of the game. It baffles me why Meath weren’t willing to wait a little while until he finalised his new management team.
“Unfortunately, he was a victim of the ageism which is so prevalent in management and coaching at inter-county level.
"We have heard all the arguments: he was too old, his coaching methods were out of date and his old-fashioned approach was destined to fail.
“A blunt word of warning to the Meath County Board. Be careful what you wish for. The golden days of Meath football are in the dim and very distant past.”
A lot of Meath and football fans would point to the fact that results simply weren't good enough for O'Rourke to be retained, but Spillane makes the point that managers with far less experience and gravitas have been kept on for being less successful.
The former TV pundit often says that he himself left The Sunday Game before he was "pushed", sensing that his age was becoming an issue for those in charge.
Ending things on his own terms was a big priority for Spillane, but unfortunately for O'Rourke, he wasn't awarded that privilege.
