20 years on, Kildare and Meath legends relive epic trilogy that captured the nation

It seems odd that the epic saga involving Meath and Kildare in 1997 is 20 years ago already, and the fact that a large chunk of the current Lilywhites panel probably don't even remember the trilogy between the two old foes exemplifies just how long ago it was.

With Kildare taking on Meath in this weekend's Leinster semi-final in Tullamore, Newstalk's Off The Ball took a look back at the brilliant summer of 1997 when the two counties needed two replays for a winner to be found, with the Royals eventually coming out on top on a scoreline of 1-12 to 1-10 in the third game, before going on to lose to Offaly later that summer.

It was a time when the likes of Kildare, Meath, Offaly, Laois and Westmeath were all in with a shout of claiming provincial glory in Leinster, but only Meath have broken the monopoly held by Dublin since 2005 by winning the 2010 title.

Meath, reigning All-Ireland champions at the time, came up against the Lilywhites in the first game on front of almost 47,000 in Croke Park, with the tie finishing 1-9 to 0-12. The second game was one of the greatest Leinster Championship games ever witnessed as the game finished 2-17 to 3-20 after extra-time - obviously no sweepers used there - and the sides went back for a third time two weeks later.

"The three games were epic and the second one - the middle one - it had everything really," said Meath legend Colm Coyle on Off The Ball.

"It had good open football, hard hitting, a few sending offs, missed penalties and great scores. And great players on both teams. At that time, Meath and Kildare were probably two of the top three teams in the country, so the quality was very high."

Anthony Rainbow joined him in studio last night, and he reminisced about Mick O'Dwyer's first year in charge of Kildare and what the Kerry hero brought to the camp.

"1997 was the foundation of our success for '98," said Rainbow, referencing the 1998 season which would see the Lilywhites take Leinster honours by beating Meath in the final and reach the All Ireland final against Galway," he said.

"When you talk about memories of the second game [against Meath in '97], that probably stands out to everybody really, that penalty save, Davy kicking the ball over the bar and coming in and getting the goal.

"But probably my abiding memory of that would be Willie McCreery, who went off with shock more than cramp, because he was only after scoring a goal and the joke going around was that he actually went off with shock because Willie never scores a goal. But he actually went off with cramp and Dermot Earley came on and that really kickstarted Dermot's career as well."

With both Meath and Kildare playing attacking football this year, who's to say we wont see another epic high-scoring encounter this weekend?