Meath GAA discussion thread

Hammer Archer

Ratoath v Tones going to extra time. 11 each. Atrocious game.

clint_silver

Hammer Archer wrote: »

Ratoath v Tones going to extra time. 11 each. Atrocious game.

Howd it finish?

Hammer Archer

clint_silver wrote: »

Howd it finish?

1 point win for Tones. 15 points to 14. Awful performance by Ratoath bar a handful of players.
Bizarre that Gough is an intercounty referee. Game was won by a Ward free which was never in a million years a free. Around 15 seconds earlier he played around 2 seconds advantage for a foul on a Ratoath player.

rpurfield

I'm massively suprised at that Ratoath result last night to be honest, I had them down as potential winners. They will come back stronger for it though

Hammer Archer

Wow. Anyone at the Simonstown v Dunboyne game? Simonstown were 11 down at half time and won by 2. Padraic McKeever got 2-5.

Hammer Archer

Results from the weekend:

SFC Knockout stages
Wolfe Tones 0-15 Ratoath 0-14 AET
Navan O'Mahony's 1-20 Na Fianna 1-13 AET
Simonstown Gaels 4-12 St. Peter's Dunboyne 2-16
Gaeil Colmcille 1-11 Moynalvey 0-13

SFC Relegation Playoff (Game 2)
Skryne 2-19 Duleek/Bellewstown 0-13

IFC Quarter Finals
St. Michael's 1-12 Kilmainham 0-12
Curraha 1-13 Donaghmore/Ashbourne 0-9
Nobber 0-17 Ballinlough 1-11
Oldcastle 2-13 Trim 1-8

IFC Relegation Playoff
Longwood 0-11 Ballivor 1-6

JFC Semi Finals
Moylagh 0-12 Clonard 0-8
Meath Hill 1-10 Carnaross 1-6

JFC B Final
Gaeil Colmcille 4-16 Kilbride 1-14

Kells make their third semi final in a row. Hats off to them, on paper they don't seem to have the strongest team yet they constantly defy expectations. Duleek/Bellewstown are down. They barely put up a fight against what isn't a great Skryne side.

In the IFC, Curraha were impressive against Donaghmore/Ashbourne. If McEntee stays fit, they'll be difficult to beat. Oldcastle had a surprisingly easy win over Trim while the Lough's run came to an end against Nobber. Michael's won the other quarter final.
The semi final lineup is:
Curraha v Oldcastle
St. Michael's v Nobber

Novel Junior final on the cards pitting Meath Hill and Moylagh against each other. Meath Hill haven't won since 1980 and haven't made the final since 1996 while Moylagh's only final appearance came in 1999 when they lost to St. Paul's. With Meath Hill's (brief) experience in division 2 this year, you'd fancy them to win out.

Hammer Archer

Half time in the SHC final and a shock is on the cards. Kildalkey lead Kiltale by 1-7 to 6 points.

Draw in the intermediate final between O'Mahonys and Na Fianna. 2-16 apiece.

iDave

What do we make of new hurling structure. Meath will be in a group with Laois WM Kerry Carlow and Antrim so not hugely different to what we did this year. Finish top 2 and we get a match at home to a T1 team that finishes 3rd in Munster or Leinster.
The format is getting critisism but I think from a Meath POV theres plenty to play for.

CrabRevolution

Not a fan of the new format, the way the championships were structured in the last 2 years has been the best in a long time. The weak teams in LMacC got several tough games at their level before getting a crack at Liam proper.

The introduction of automatic 1 up/1 down improved the Christy Ring hugely with several good teams fighting to win it. Now with Meath staying up and Carlow+Antrim joining them the CR will be neutered by having it's top teams skimmed off and nobody coming down. This just makes a bigger gap between CR teams and the LMacC.

I'm also not a fan of teams leapfrogging from lower divisions into the later stages of a higher competition (i.e. the top teams from tier 2 go through to the knockout stages, but the 4th team from division 1 don't).

The article I saw said there's relegation from the Tier 1 groups, but I'd imagine that's supposed to mean relegation from the Leinster group only? Munster counties would hardly agree to any form of relegation.

I wasn't sure what the issue was that people felt these changes were neeeded. I'd imagine they were desperate to promote Antrim by hook or crook, but find it hard to believe they'd change a 130 year old provincial knockout system just for that purpose.

From a selfish POV it's nice that Meath stayed up anyway, even if it was through reorganisation rather than performance.

iDave

CrabRevolution wrote: »

Not a fan of the new format, the way the championships were structured in the last 2 years has been the best in a long time. The weak teams in LMacC got several tough games at their level before getting a crack at Liam proper.

The introduction of automatic 1 up/1 down improved the Christy Ring hugely with several good teams fighting to win it. Now with Meath staying up and Carlow+Antrim joining them the CR will be neutered by having it's top teams skimmed off and nobody coming down. This just makes a bigger gap between CR teams and the LMacC.

I'm also not a fan of teams leapfrogging from lower divisions into the later stages of a higher competition (i.e. the top teams from tier 2 go through to the knockout stages, but the 4th team from division 1 don't).

The article I saw said there's relegation from the Tier 1 groups, but I'd imagine that's supposed to mean relegation from the Leinster group only? Munster counties would hardly agree to any form of relegation.

I wasn't sure what the issue was that people felt these changes were neeeded. I'd imagine they were desperate to promote Antrim by hook or crook, but find it hard to believe they'd change a 130 year old provincial knockout system just for that purpose.

From a selfish POV it's nice that Meath stayed up anyway, even if it was through reorganisation rather than performance.

I presume relegation and promotion will exist between CR and T2.

AFAIK if Kerry finish top 2 they playoff against a Munster county. All other teams will go up to Leinster.

Think the reform is a reaction to football super 8 where hurling looked like it would get swamped.

CrabRevolution

iDave wrote: »

I presume relegation and promotion will exist between CR and T2.

AFAIK if Kerry finish top 2 they playoff against a Munster county. All other teams will go up to Leinster.

Think the reform is a reaction to football super 8 where hurling looked like it would get swamped.

I know there's still promotion and relegation between LMacC and CR, but where previously you had the 15th best team in Ireland playing in the CR, after this year the best team in the CR will be 18th in the country. For me a thing that made winning the CR even better last year was the fact you had strong London and Antrim teams in the competition.

Hammer Archer

All Ireland camogie champions. Well done ladies.

Hammer Archer

So Kiltale won their 4th in a row but not as convincingly as a lot of people (myself included) thought they would. By all accounts, they were in serious trouble for long parts of the game on Saturday.
They'll play The Harps from Laois in Leinster which they should get by. Then they'll most likely face the Kilkenny champions yet again.

iDave

Hammer Archer wrote: »

So Kiltale won their 4th in a row but not as convincingly as a lot of people (myself included) thought they would. By all accounts, they were in serious trouble for long parts of the game on Saturday.
They'll play The Harps from Laois in Leinster which they should get by. Then they'll most likely face the Kilkenny champions yet again.

Is it just luck of the draw playing a KK team?


Presume Meath are now senior camogie in 18?

Hammer Archer

iDave wrote: »

Is it just luck of the draw playing a KK team?


Presume Meath are now senior camogie in 18?

Would assume they're senior now alright. Ladies' footballers were beaten by the champions Tipp in the semi final so hopefully they won't be too far behind in making it to senior.

The KK intermediate champions have won Leinster for the last 5 years running so you're most likely going to have to beat their champions if you're to win it. Though the KK champions play the Kildare champions in the quarter final so they could do Kiltale a favour (Celbridge should have beaten Carrickshock in the final last year).

rpurfield

CrabRevolution wrote: »

I know there's still promotion and relegation between LMacC and CR, but where previously you had the 15th best team in Ireland playing in the CR, after this year the best team in the CR will be 18th in the country. For me a thing that made winning the CR even better last year was the fact you had strong London and Antrim teams in the competition.

Relegation is out of Leinster if a Leinster team tops the group or out of Munster if Kerry do. Be some craic if Kerry do go up and replace one of the Munster teams, there'll be some scrambling to adjust it then. I'm just glad we weren't kicked back to the Ring,it would've damaged a lot of the progress made in the last few years.

Super result for the Camoige team, can't beat a bit of silverwear.

iDave

rpurfield wrote: »

CrabRevolution wrote: »

I know there's still promotion and relegation between LMacC and CR, but where previously you had the 15th best team in Ireland playing in the CR, after this year the best team in the CR will be 18th in the country. For me a thing that made winning the CR even better last year was the fact you had strong London and Antrim teams in the competition.

Relegation is out of Leinster if a Leinster team tops the group or out of Munster if Kerry do. Be some craic if Kerry do go up and replace one of the Munster teams, there'll be some scrambling to adjust it then. I'm just glad we weren't kicked back to the Ring,it would've damaged a lot of the progress made in the last few years.

Super result for the Camoige team, can't beat a bit of silverwear.

I believe in the event of Kerry winning they will have a playoff with the bottom Munster team. Make of that what you will.

rpurfield

iDave wrote: »

I believe in the event of Kerry winning they will have a playoff with the bottom Munster team. Make of that what you will.

I'd well believe it's fudged already, although what benefit to anyone would a year of one of the Munster 5 whipping everyone in tier 2 achieve for anyone

Hammer Archer

Just so I'm clear, there was no relegation in the Liam McCarthy and both Christy Ring finalists were promoted? So how's that going to affect next year's Christy Ring/Nicky Rackard/Lory Meagher? Are both finalists promoted all the way down?

If that's the case, I do think it greatly decreases the quality of all the lower tier competitions. Though looking at the 2017 CR final, it was blatantly obvious that Antrim knew they'd be in the Liam McCarthy in 2018 regardless of the result.
GAA just seem to have taken the easy way out again. They desperately want Antrim to be in the Liam McCarthy again but knew that if they promoted them, Meath would (completely justifiably) kick up stink, especially given the GAAs reaction to the Meath County Board changing the makeup of the Junior Football Championship this year.

rpurfield

Hammer Archer wrote: »

Just so I'm clear, there was no relegation in the Liam McCarthy and both Christy Ring finalists were promoted? So how's that going to affect next year's Christy Ring/Nicky Rackard/Lory Meagher? Are both finalists promoted all the way down?

If that's the case, I do think it greatly decreases the quality of all the lower tier competitions. Though looking at the 2017 CR final, it was blatantly obvious that Antrim knew they'd be in the Liam McCarthy in 2018 regardless of the result.
GAA just seem to have taken the easy way out again. They desperately want Antrim to be in the Liam McCarthy again but knew that if they promoted them, Meath would (completely justifiably) kick up stink, especially given the GAAs reaction to the Meath County Board changing the makeup of the Junior Football Championship this year.

Listening to the sports show on 2fm last night Tom Dempsey was on it about the restructure and he was saying it would be a shame if Offaly, Wexford or Dublin ended up down without a playoff like the Muster team would have if Kerry win it. They then went on to talk about how bad it would be for Offaly hurling to be relegated like they deserve an automatic place in the Liam McCarthy, to me that's doing a massive disservice to those promoting hurling in the tier 2 counties (and below). You should be in the Liam on merit and not because you were good for a bit 20 years ago.

rpurfield

Has anyone downloaded the app that the county board launched? It's actually pretty decent. I was running around like a mad thing today but caught about five minutes of St. Michael's and Nobber on it and the quality of the stream was good. One of the lads off the Meath GAA Lad podcasts was commentating and I think the other lad with him today runs that We Are Meath Twitter/Podcast, which I've only seen in the last couple of weeks but not heard yet.

I love a good moan at the county board but it has to be said their online stuff and general communications, match programmes etc are top notch.

Hammer Archer

Is it on Android yet? Heard good things about it alright. Barring a couple of weeks this year where the fixtures/results section went down they're extremely good at updating both adult and underage results and fixtures.

rpurfield

Hammer Archer wrote: »

Is it on Android yet? Heard good things about it alright. Barring a couple of weeks this year where the fixtures/results section went down they're extremely good at updating both adult and underage results and fixtures.

Yeah it is that's what I have it on.

Hammer Archer

Looks very good. I like that anyone can provide updates to the games in the comments section.
Curraha v St. Michael's in the Intermediate football final. Micks hammered Nobber while Curraha were better than their 2 point win suggests. Should be a cracking final.
NOM beat Na Fianna in the IHC final replay. They'll play away to Wolfe Tones (Longford senior champions) in the Leinster JHC next weekend by the looks of it.

Hammer Archer

Meath Hill win the junior championship beating Moylagh 1-12 to 9 points. Moylagh had 2 gilt edged goal chances that they blazed wide and missed a heap of easy frees in the second half.
Meath Hill will play Glen Emmets of Louth in the Leinster championship in two weeks.

rpurfield

Hammer Archer wrote: »

Looks very good. I like that anyone can provide updates to the games in the comments section.
Curraha v St. Michael's in the Intermediate football final. Micks hammered Nobber while Curraha were better than their 2 point win suggests. Should be a cracking final.
NOM beat Na Fianna in the IHC final replay. They'll play away to Wolfe Tones (Longford senior champions) in the Leinster JHC next weekend by the looks of it.

Yeah I likes that for the Curraha game. I'm pleasantly suprised that they won the semi final, the final will be a cracker.

Hammer Archer

Summerhill through to the semi final against Gaeil Colmcille. Can't see NOM being a force for a while at least.

Hammer Archer

Minor football final will be between Ratoath and Na Fianna. Ratoath easily beat Seneschalstown while Na Fianna scraped by a fancied Dunboyne side by a point.

Na Fianna are going for a minor football and hurling championship double. They're up against Longwood/Killyon in the hurling decider on Saturday week.

iDave

Allianz Football League Division 2

Round 1: Saturday, January 27th: Cork v Tipperary; Sunday January 28th: Clare v Cavan, Louth v Down, Roscommon v Meath

Round 2: Saturday, February 3rd: Cavan v Louth, Tipperary v Roscommon; Sunday, February 4th: Down v Cork, Meath v Clare

Round 3: Saturday, February 10: Cavan v Meath; Sunday, February 11: Clare v Tipperary, Cork v Louth, Roscommon v Down

Round 4: Sunday, February 25th: Cork v Cavan, Down v Clare, Louth v Roscommon, Tipperary v Meath

Round 5: Saturday, March 3rd: Cavan v Down; Sunday, March 4th: Clare v Roscommon, Meath v Cork, Tipperary v Louth

Round 6: Saturday, March 17th: Cork v Clare; Sunday, March 18th: Down v Tipperary, Louth v Meath, Roscommon v Cavan

Round 7: Sunday, March 25th: Cavan v Tipperary, Clare v Louth, Meath v Down, Roscommon v Cork

Hammer Archer

Simonstown v Wolfe Tones is live on eir Sport 2 tomorrow.

Hard to know how we're going to do in the league. Could finally get promoted or could be battling relegation. I'm sick of division 2 at this stage. In 11 years, we'll spent 10 of them in division 2.