MEATH TOOK HER focus for a while, then Donegal, but Dublin captain Carla Rowe has rarely averted her gaze too far from Cork.

The old rivals will meet again in the second of Saturday’s TG4 All-Ireland semi-finals in Thurles, a repeat of five finals from the last decade alone.

Rowe played in, and lost, the first three of those finals, beginning with the rollercoaster 2014 decider which Cork won after coming from 10 points behind.

The Rebels inflicted more misery with a two-point win in the 2015 final before completing their six-in-a-row with another final win over Dublin in 2016.

There was revenge for the Dubs in 2018 and 2020, a pair of final wins over Cork that only added to the intense relationship between two football strongholds.

“Definitely for myself and some of the older girls, you’ll always have that rivalry,” said Rowe.

“Those Cork teams were fantastic and there’s still so many of those girls hanging around. The O’Sullivans are obviously there, they’ve had a huge influence and are brilliant players.

“So it’s definitely something you have in the back of your mind. You know the threat that they have and I think they’ve gone through their transition stage and have definitely embedded some really good young players so they’ve got big threats and we’re looking forward to working it out and taking on that challenge.”

Dublin are narrow favourites to regain the All-Ireland title that they last claimed in 2020, when they completed the four-in-a-row. They were denied a fifth consecutive title in 2021 by Meath who went on to complete back-to-back wins in 2022.

It was Donegal that ultimately ended Dublin’s interest in last year’s Championship, beating Mick Bohan’s side at the quarter-final stage. They, like Meath, enjoyed success against Dublin with a cautious, counter-attacking style which Rowe admitted took some getting used to.

“It definitely did, similar to what happened in the men’s game,” said Rowe. “I think we probably got caught out by Donegal in that All-Ireland quarter-final because it wasn’t their usual way of playing.

“And with Meath obviously in 2021, we’d never played against that system before, we’d never been exposed to it.

“We play a very open brand of football where it’s going forward and it’s fast flowing so yeah, it’s something we had to learn about and it took us a while to break it down but I definitely think we’ve got that number now.”

Truth be told, it became an obsession for Bohan and his team to get to grips with the blanket.

“And there’s nothing like being beaten either to make you go and get obsessed with something,” acknowledged Rowe.

“A lot of us took, as frustrating as that system can be, particularly for inside forwards, but we took great pleasure from breaking it down eventually.”

Not that Rowe is daring to dream about regaining the All-Ireland, not with Munster champions Cork still standing in their way at the last four stage.

“The other thing we learned from last year is don’t be thinking ahead of where you’re at,” said Rowe.

“It’s Cork in an All-Ireland semi-final. Our eyes aren’t looking beyond that.”

The last time the teams met, in the National League at the start of March, it was a cracker. They shared seven goals and Dublin eventually won by a point. Rowe struck what proved to be the winner. Dublin have since been boosted by the return of veteran icon and former captain fantastic Sinead Aherne.

“She came on in the quarter-final and got a goal straight away,” noted Rowe. “Her football brain is something that you always want to be able to pick at, so it’s fantastic to have her around.”