Joe Brolly has blasted the defensive game plan employed by Meath in their heavy Leinster SFC semi-final defeat to Dublin and accused them of lacking ambition.

After taking the game to the All-Ireland champions early on and trailing by just three points at half-time, the Royals were overpowered in a second half that had a challenge match feel to it and eventually succumbed to a 10-point loss.

Speaking on RTE afterwards, Brolly rejected the notion that Mick O'Dowd's men had given it a go.

"Meath, like 90 per cent of the other counties in Ireland, are trapped in these doomed game plans. As they fell further and further and further behind, they persisted with three or four sweepers and played with one forward," he said.

"At one stage when Meath were eight points behind, Dublin held the ball in the middle third for two minutes, two seconds as Meath swamped their own defensive area. It was a total waste of time, it's futile, it's a game that lacks courage and ambition so players respond accordingly and in due course lose their sense of ambition.

"The attack has been rehearsed out of them.

"People were saying why don't they attack, why don't they push up and attack? And the answer is, and I know this from watching my own county [Derry] over the last four years, they don't know how to attack anymore."

The outspoken pundit added: "I was in Meath about October time and they were training five times a week to do that. What is the point?"

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