Meath GAA discussion thread

Hammer Archer

That's the spirit :pac:

Royal Legend

Whats the ticket situation tonight, am travelling up for the game, no tickets left on line, are we expecting a sell out???
Would the Supervalu's, Centra's still have them this afternoon?

Felexicon

Royal Legend wrote:

Whats the ticket situation tonight, am travelling up for the game, no tickets left on line, are we expecting a sell out??? Would the Supervalu's, Centra's still have them this afternoon?

You can't get them from tickets.ie because there is no time to post them out to you. No idea why they don't give the option to print them yourself anymore.
I got 3 tickets in Super Valu last night no bother

Rock Lesnar

Looking forward to this now but Im half expecting to see 5 of our forwards in our half, 5 of theirs in their half and the midfield passing the ball around themselves, and we win 2 points to 1.

whatnext

I'd say we're outnumbered here.
Hope the lads have something left in them for the game. That was some training session they had earlier in lieu of a warm up.

beardo81

Live stream of the game on Michael Murphy's Sports Facebook page. Lash on lmfm and you have commentary too!!

mickrourke

Gutted. Its the hope that kills you.
Still, bodes well for next year.
so close.
Need a new goalkeeper though

Hammer Archer

Absolutely gutted with that result.

Positives:
Brian Conlon - For his second ever start, he was very assured and composed.
Conor McGill - Quality performance from him. And the block he made in the second half was incredible.
Donal Lenehan - Flawless from frees as far as I can remember.
Overall, I think the team showed a good bit more fight and passion than the Kildare and Sligo games and could have come out with a win.

Negatives:
Graham Reilly - Again, don't think he worked hard enough. Too often, he was simply jogging around the pitch when we were without the ball.
Paddy O'Rourke - I'm actually a big fan of Paddy. During the league, I thought he did very well. But two of his kickouts in a couple of minutes in the second half went straight to Donegal players and we went from 2 up to level.

Overall, the difference between us was individual mistakes. As well as Paddy's mistakes in the second half, O'Coilean gave a ball away in our defence which lead to a Donegal point while Harnan hand-passed straight to a Donegal player in midfield leading to another point.

That's it for another year, I'm off to drown my sorrows.

iDave

What is it with Meath and Ulster teams.?02 Donegal 03 Fermanagh 04 Fermanagh 05 Cavan 13 Tyrone 14 Armagh 15 Tyrone 16 Derry 17 Donegal.
Had to rely on LMFM but sounded like it was a winable game we bottled. How many wides did Donegal kick in second half and we didnt punish them.
POR sounded to be up to his old tricks again.
Another poor year you would have to say. If i was told on Jan 1 we wouldnt of made the OBC final on opposite side to Dublin, stagnated in Div 2, hammered by a team other than Dublin in Leinster and another Ulster team knock us out of qualifiers I would of been raging.
First year for McEntee I know but we've been here before.

dixiefly

Hammer Archer wrote: »

Absolutely gutted with that result.

Positives:
Brian Conlon - For his second ever start, he was very assured and composed.
Conor McGill - Quality performance from him. And the block he made in the second half was incredible.
Donal Lenehan - Flawless from frees as far as I can remember.
Overall, I think the team showed a good bit more fight and passion than the Kildare and Sligo games and could have come out with a win.

Negatives:
Graham Reilly - Again, don't think he worked hard enough. Too often, he was simply jogging around the pitch when we were without the ball.
Paddy O'Rourke - I'm actually a big fan of Paddy. During the league, I thought he did very well. But two of his kickouts in a couple of minutes in the second half went straight to Donegal players and we went from 2 up to level.

Overall, the difference between us was individual mistakes. As well as Paddy's mistakes in the second half, O'Coilean gave a ball away in our defence which lead to a Donegal point while Harnan hand-passed straight to a Donegal player in midfield leading to another point.

That's it for another year, I'm off to drown my sorrows.

Agree with most of what you wrote there. Very disappointed after that result. I thought that our management were slow to make changes and didnt try and go out and win the game and were nearly expecting extra time. Another negative is that too many of our players lost their individual battles with their opponents.

Donegal seemed to have a more effective attacking approach and created several goal chances. We failed to keep tabs on McBrearty and Murphy and paid the price in the end.

If Mick O'Dowd or Banty had presided over recent games there would be many in the county calling for their heads. Let's hope that Andy and co have learned from this year and have a bit more faith in their bench at this stage of the season.

Rock Lesnar

Hammer Archer wrote: »

Overall, the difference between us was individual mistakes. As well as Paddy's mistakes in the second half, O'Coilean gave a ball away in our defence which lead to a Donegal point while Harnan hand-passed straight to a Donegal player in midfield leading to another point.

Pretty much sums up the point i was gonna make, we should have won but the errors cost us, also to the lads around me for criticising Donal Keoghan for losing the ball instead of kicking a point in the last minute of injury time, we shouldnt need to depend on a corner back to save the game while some of our forwards were floating around in areas where there was no chance of a threat from them.

On to the club scene again, and see ye all again in january all going well

Obrieski

Disappointing end to what I had hoped would be a positive year. I fear this is where we are though, player wise I mean. This is our level. We are kidding ourselves thinking we should be in last 8's etc. Consistently over the last number of years, mid July has where we have been knocked out. We can blame management all we want but this is our level with the talent pool we have. And it pains me so much to write that. Anyone who thinks different is kidding themselves. We do not have minor or U21 success stories coming through, our club championship can be won by losing 2, even 3 games. The bite and fight of Meath is gone. Too many times yesterday Donegal ran 50 or 60 yards without a hand being laid on their players.

Now, there was positives as mentioned previously, and by god we should have won the game. But how many times recently, against decent opposition, have we lost games we should/ could have won. Even when we were 2 up with 5 left, it's like everyone around me knew the inevitably of what was coming. And once again, I hate to type it.

Have a feeling that panel will change considerably before next year - Andy Mac with a year under his belt will improve and know a lot more about his players. Looking at our bench we had no game changers there besides Newman who came on. Hopefully the club championships and success of the juniors will propel a few new names forward as we badly a few big game players around.

Royal Legend

Obrieski wrote: »

Disappointing end to what I had hoped would be a positive year. I fear this is where we are though, player wise I mean. This is our level. We are kidding ourselves thinking we should be in last 8's etc. Consistently over the last number of years, mid July has where we have been knocked out. We can blame management all we want but this is our level with the talent pool we have. And it pains me so much to write that. Anyone who thinks different is kidding themselves. We do not have minor or U21 success stories coming through, our club championship can be won by losing 2, even 3 games. The bite and fight of Meath is gone. Too many times yesterday Donegal ran 50 or 60 yards without a hand being laid on their players.

Now, there was positives as mentioned previously, and by god we should have won the game. But how many times recently, against decent opposition, have we lost games we should/ could have won. Even when we were 2 up with 5 left, it's like everyone around me knew the inevitably of what was coming. And once again, I hate to type it.

Have a feeling that panel will change considerably before next year - Andy Mac with a year under his belt will improve and know a lot more about his players. Looking at our bench we had no game changers there besides Newman who came on. Hopefully the club championships and success of the juniors will propel a few new names forward as we badly a few big game players around.

thoughts from last night, Donegal came with their defensive plan to eek out a win and so they did, in fairness Murphy must have kicked at least three scoreable frees given his prowess.

Its sad to say this is how football is gone, players afraid to try things in case they give the ball away, was thinking during the match that like Donegal we used to play with 2 men in the full forward line and leave them with acres of space inside, only difference here was that Donegal were never going to kick the ball into them????? mind boggling

I thought we were much more direct than Donegal, which would not be very hard, and that when the right ball was kicked into O'Sullivan he did well, problem was our choice of kick into our forwards left a lot to be desired, too many inaccurate hopping balls, would have been better with low driven balls. Accuracy is key with these blanket defenses. A lot of the time we took out their sweeper McGlynn with diagonal balls which was good.

Backs did very well, even allowing for Donegals lack of ambition, just goes to show, two slips in the half back line and Donegal were in for two goals (one disallowed)

Menton did well at midfield and unlike the Kildare game we won our fair share at crucial times, Donegal probably edged us in the scrappy ball. Paddy's kickouts were ok for the most part, apart from the two crucial glitches, it was noticeable that at certain times Donegal full pressed our kickouts, just before half time when they got the goal that was disallowed and leading up to the winning goal.

O'Sullivan deserved his black card, either he was tired or does not know how to tackle, he gave away two stupid frees when all he had to do was Shepard the player, considering every Donegal player with ball in hand is going to stop turn around and pass backwards away from the goal! Micky Newmans introduction did not really add anything, looked sluggish.

We badly need a playmaker or two out the field to get the right ball into the forwards, we definitely need to get promotion next year to get to play against this type of sh1te football on a regular basis and start to understand how to play against it and also weed out the players that are not good enough at this level. when Donegal engineered the winning point for McBrearty, all the Donegal fans knew the game was won, the spoiling, pulling, dragging started straight away, they knew how to close the game out, one of their forwards even stood right in front of Paddy's kickout to slow, disrupt the play.


On a side note, its sad to see football played in this manner, the game has gone to the dogs, my only chink of light is that Kerry win the AI this year or we have a fairytale ending with Mayo.

Donegal played at times with 15 men in their own half, so did we. they also went with two inside on the square, but not once was the ball kicked directly into them. there were times when Donegal more the ball out of defense into midfield and still they had 15 men in their own half? I understand what they were trying to do and to try to suck in Meath to use their speed on the counter.

IMO its sad to see players of the calibre of Murphy, the McHughs, McBrearty not expressing themselves, afraid to make mistakes, playing the percentages, passing sideways, backwards. Again IMO Donegal have better footballers than Meath at present, add in McGlynn, the McGees, but they are shackled, they showed in the league early on what they can do then reverted to type when the pressure came on.

Whats worse is that people are now accepting this as football, I heard many Donegal fans leaving the Pairc last night saying what a great game it was and sad to say also a few Meath fans, even the RTE write up uses the word "Epic" and that is was an "Enthralling game" WTF. For me the buzz on the terrace was not there last night and has been missing for a while.

Positives are that we now do not capitulate, not having to play catchup after a poor first half (Kildare aside who are a bit further down the road in terms of development) and no second half collapses of 8 and 10 point leads. I would give Andy plenty of time to try and get this right, need to unearth a few new players, noticable that Newman was the only man on the field or bench from North Meath, Meath need players spread from all corners of the county to be able to compete.

CrabRevolution

I posted this ramble after the Down game in the league: http://http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=102741180&postcount=4360

While things picked up in the league a bit, I still haven't changed my opinion that McEntee can only do so much with the players we have. I know a few people talk about "only year one" and "green shoots", but I think that's just wishful thinking to keep them happy over the winter.

Was finishing third in the league any better than O'Dowd finishing third in the league? Was losing to an unimpressive Donegal team at home any better than losing to All Ireland semi finalists Tyrone in 2015? The last 5 years or so have been almost identical, league stagnation and a Leinster semi final /final, followed by a qualifer loss to an Ulster team.

Royal Legend

CrabRevolution wrote: »

I posted this ramble after the Down game in the league: http://http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=102741180&postcount=4360

While things picked up in the league a bit, I still haven't changed my opinion that McEntee can only do so much with the players we have. I know a few people talk about "only year one" and "green shoots", but I think that's just wishful thinking to keep them happy over the winter.

Was finishing third in the league any better than O'Dowd finishing third in the league? Was losing to an unimpressive Donegal team at home any better than losing to All Ireland semi finalists Tyrone in 2015? The last 5 years or so have been almost identical, league stagnation and a Leinster semi final /final, followed by a qualifer loss to an Ulster team.

Have to agree, I dont think we have enough good footballers, Boylan scoured the county in all divisions to build his team, Andy needs to do the same.

enricoh

Went up on the bank at the hospital end for the second half to keep the kids happy.
I thought it was a definite free in for keoghan In the last minute. Having said that the free we got before that was of the soft variety so swings n roundabouts.
One thing that had me raging leaving was the kick out from the donegal keeper that eventually led to mc breartys point to win it. Everyone had pushed up , mento was doing great plucking ball at midfield if the keeper was made go long, but biggy just didnt bother marking his man. Low n behold short kickout and twenty passes later the ball is over the bar. Sickened.

dixiefly

enricoh wrote: »

Went up on the bank at the hospital end for the second half to keep the kids happy.
I thought it was a definite free in for keoghan In the last minute. Having said that the free we got before that was of the soft variety so swings n roundabouts.
One thing that had me raging leaving was the kick out from the donegal keeper that eventually led to mc breartys point to win it. Everyone had pushed up , mento was doing great plucking ball at midfield if the keeper was made go long, but biggy just didnt bother marking his man. Low n behold short kickout and twenty passes later the ball is over the bar. Sickened.

The mistakes made in the latter stages and easy possession given away makes you really wonder why Andy didnt give more opportunity to fresh legs from the bench. Only 2 substitutions besides the black card for Cillian. I thiink if I was one of the unused subs I would be pretty frustrated. As a supporter I am completely frustrated, 3 poor performances and still minimal changes game to game and during this crucial game. And Andy to go blaming the ref is a bit meh to me, in my opinion the ref was not the reason we lost that game.

As i say utterly frustrating as we would have had a great chance in extra time and against Galway.

Hammer Archer

Yet again, absolute joke of a "highlights" program by the Sunday Game. Why in the name of jaysus do they insist on spending the vast majority of the programme on matches they covered live? If people want to see the coverage again, they can just go online! How about showing decent highlights of games not on TV???

mattser

Hammer Archer wrote: »

Yet again, absolute joke of a "highlights" program by the Sunday Game. Why in the name of jaysus do they insist on spending the vast majority of the programme on matches they covered live? If people want to see the coverage again, they can just go online! How about showing decent highlights of games not on TV???

That's bad enough Hammer, but when I used to watch they had this stupid habit of showing replay after replay in live time.

When they'd switch back, the ball would have been kicked out and caught, and sometimes scored. And then, as you say, they'd spend a couple of hours that night showing it all again.

dixiefly

Hammer Archer wrote: »

Yet again, absolute joke of a "highlights" program by the Sunday Game. Why in the name of jaysus do they insist on spending the vast majority of the programme on matches they covered live? If people want to see the coverage again, they can just go online! How about showing decent highlights of games not on TV???

And the "analysis" afterwards was almost Donegal based, i.e. talking about them. I didnt mind their future progress first but Dessie usually asks for comments regarding the other team etc.

We really are a third tier team now - compare the coverage last night to what we would have received in the eighties / nineties.

Hammer Archer

Out of interest, anyone know the last time we went an entire championship campaign without playing in Croke Park? Can't remember it ever happening in my time going to games.

Rock Lesnar

Hammer Archer wrote: »

Out of interest, anyone know the last time we went an entire championship campaign without playing in Croke Park? Can't remember it ever happening in my time going to games.

Im thinking 1992 when Laois beat us in Navan but since the qualifiers came in, im not sure

Stoner

Hammer Archer wrote:

Yet again, absolute joke of a "highlights" program by the Sunday Game. Why in the name of jaysus do they insist on spending the vast majority of the programme on matches they covered live? If people want to see the coverage again, they can just go online! How about showing decent highlights of games not on TV???

I've no idea why they continue with this practice, it's good to talk about them but no need to show so many highlights, theses days most people have the ability to record. I'd have the game and highights recorded
I've often watched a recording of a game and then loaded up the Sunday game only to fast forward to the panel. I've often switched off the Sunday game if I saw the games

With Meath dropping down the pecking order you'd get even less air time.

rpurfield

I was away myself so relied on a bit of LMFM till the wifi went bonkers then it was Twitter, I'm really disappointed beause it seemed a winnable game and then the whole summer opens up.

Agree with a lot of what is said above, we've produced sod all at underage in the last 20 years so we've no right to expect to be up there, having said that Cavan have produced some great 21 teams and look at their record, and Down have really come from nowhere this year again as they seem to every now and again. I don't know what it's going to take but something drastic needs doing. The following and hunger is there among the support but we can't seem to match it with the success we all want

sc86

big reform on the way for the meath shc at last

some teams have no business being in the top grade

Hammer Archer

sc86 wrote: »

big reform on the way for the meath shc at last

some teams have no business being in the top grade

Can you enlighten me?
Some absolutely ridiculous results at the weekend. Stand out one being Killyon beating Dunderry by 47 (forty-seven) points (8-34 to 0-11). Dunderry have lost their last two games by a combined total of 76 points yet will stay in the SHC by virtue of beating Boardsmill in round 1.
Ratoath - Longwood was a very good game of hurling though. Gavin McGowan and Darragh Kelly are two class acts.

CrabRevolution

I've heard of a proposal for the championship to be split in 2. One group of the 6 strongest teams, and the other 6 teams in another. Top 2 from the strong group go into the semi finals, 3rd and 4th from the strong group play the 1st and 2nd from the weak group. 5th and 6th from the strong group are replaced with 1st and 2nd from the weak group the following year. Bottom team in the weak group is relegated to intermediate. Whether or not it'll be accepted is another story.

Fergal Lynch proposed another format in the chronicle this week. An 8 team senior championship with 2 groups of 4, and the same for a senior B championship. The top 2 teams from the senior B would enter the quarter finals of that years jubilee cup. Not sure how it would work though, as you'd need the senior B championship to be over before you even start the knockout rounds of the senior championship. It'd also devalue the new senior B championship as it makes no difference whether you win or lose the final, similar to the league finals in inter county football where often teams seem to go through the motions.

sc86

the talk is splitting into groups of 8 - so promote 4 from inter into the new senior b section
they want clubs ideas , meeting tomorrow night
emails were sent to clubs today
needs to be done asap

personally id like to see a group of 8
play each other once
top 4 into semi
would make very competitive champ with all close games
there is talk of 2 groups of 4 but i think thats terrible - your year could consist of 3 games then out

as usuall i can see the 4 weaker teams objecting to going into senior b , dunderry / bhg boardsmill etc have no business been senior and im not sure
why they would even want to remain gettin hammered

CrabRevolution

I can't see how they'd find room for a 7 rounds of the league, 7 rounds of championship, plus another half dozen weekends for Davis Cup, league knockout games, championship semi finals etc. On top of Meath hurling and football games, club football games, Meath U21 games in the summer....

sc86

its only 1 extra game as youd loose the 1/4 final stage
brendan davies is played midweek so doesnt really get in way , league knock out is just a final so again no big deal


theres way to many rounds of a league football but thats another story
football champ needs reform aswell badly