Meath GAA discussion thread

Meath (Allianz FL v Louth): Andrew Colgan; Seamus Lavin, Conor McGill, Mickey Burke; James McEntee, Donal Keogan, Shane McEntee; Bryan Menton, Adam Flanagan; Eamon Wallace, Ben Brennan, Graham Reilly; Cillian O'Sullivan, Thomas O'Reilly, Donal Lenihan.

Don't think I'm exaggerating when I say this is the biggest game for Meath in a while. Lose here and relegation is all but certain.
Louth will be hopping off walls to beat us and we simply cannot afford division 3 next year for a young, inexperienced team.
Division 3 is also a brute of a division, one I would not be overly confident of doing well in at all.
Come on lads, we need this one.

Rock Lesnar wrote:

Louth game at 3pm on saturday

The 2017 Tailteann cup is fixed for the same time in Navan
Meath Hill played the semi final for that competition on Saint Patrick's day last year

Worst first half of football I've seen but a good improvement in the 2nd half

The ground itself is a disgrace with 4 portable toilets at the stand side with the main toilets at the far side.

Jamemid wrote: »

Any idea of what happened for the players to leave panel.

No idea specifically for these players but a few ideas come to mind.
I did hear first hand how some players trained 4 nights in a row in the week between the 2 rounds of club championship just gone. At least one of these sessions included a yo-yo / bleep test which I do not see as being anyway necessary at this time of year. Highly unfair on these players to have to do this with a club championship game the same week.

A second potential reason is a new rule I only heard about today. Apparently, if a player wishes to go to America later in the summer to play GAA, they can't have been named on a county championship panel unless they can prove they are a student and had applied for a J1 visa. Now, while I have no idea if that had any bearing on the lads decision or not, it might have been a factor.

Unfortunately we must plan without them, and in the case of McKeever and Tobin in particular, and also Brian Conlon, they are massive losses. McKeever has been best forward in club championship over past 2 years and one of our top scorers this league campaign. Tobin has an eye for a goal and has had a big impact coming on as a sub recently and surely would have been pushing for a starting spot. Conlon is the athletic half back we need going forward and has lots of potential so in all 3 cases, it is a big shame to lose them.

But we must move on and hope the lads who are there, and any new heads floating around, get themselves prepared for a huge game versus Longford who gave us a serious game (albeit in O'Byrne Cup) and we are in no position to treat any opposition lightly.

If u dont like my style u better off stop reading now for this is a long long one covering problems and issues in Meath football.

I wouldnt give a prediction v Longford because as long as we can come out of Pearse Stadium with a victory I will be happy. Ever since the draw and watching team longford in Byrne Cup in Navan in the spring I always thought this game was a tough opener for Meath. And I havent changed my mind , I wouldnt be surprised if Longford won but of course Im hoping Meath win. Longford have had two big wins over Meath before which were very significant eg 1968, 1982. I hope on Sunday week we wouldnt have a third famous loss to the men from the Midlands.

What I will say if this game was in the qualifiers you would have to fancy longford big time. longford in the qualifiers in Peasre stadium.has been one of the toughest and trickiest place to go. With Mayo Derry Down and Monaghan all beaten in Pearse stadium. Like Sligo Wexford Tipperary and Fermanagh longford have shown outside the rigid proviencal championships, they can prosper as all these teams in the qualifiers have shown some great performances and victories.

In the leinster championship Longfords recent form had been poor. While Meath are having their worst decade since Independence people might be surprised to hear that after Dublin that Meath have been the second most successful county in leinster championship not kildare. kildare are fourth. In this decade Dublin are number 1 of course with 7 titles. Meath are second with 4 leinster final appearances and 1 leinster title, Westmeath are third with 2 leinster final appearances and kildare Wexford and louth are joint 4th with 1 leinster final appearance each .

Meath I always feel up their game come the championship . Meath are a great championship county and it would be very rare for Meath to lose their opening round of leinster championship. It usually happens in unusual circumstances eg losing to Offaly in 2000 . We were reigning All Ireland champions and had played in a national league division 1 final and replay a week or to before. And Offaly caught us in the first round. On 1992 laois defeated Meath in first round but that was the last game of that great 87 87 team , it was breaking up. Meath usually always play well in the first round. Theyre had been one or two bad performances recently V Carlow under Banty. And we had a game v Wicklow in first round in Navan under O Dowd where Wicklow caused a good few problems. But overall we usually start the championship well. Last two years we played well v louth in opening games. You would probaly have to back to 1982 when longford beat us in first round for a real bad defeat in leinster championship in first round.( I hope that is not a sign).As the game comes closer Im becoming quite anxious. I would love to have a crack at Dublin this year. I know people might laugh at that. I know Dublin will win. But still being from Meath playing Dublin in Croke Park is always the big one for us.But firstly we have to get over longford. Which will be a tough opener. Where both sides can win.

Meath I believe are not as bad as many people want or need us to be. We are not as good as we want to be eitheir. However I do believe there is potential with this young team and best management we have had since Boylan. But it will take time. Lots of it. I believe we are 24 months away from being were we want to be div 1 football team and reaching the super 8. When a traditional county is in the doldrums it takes years to turn things around. It took Boylan 4 years on 2 different occasion 86 96 to turn Meath around. It also took McGee 4 years to turn Offaly around in 1980 and it took Dywer 5 years in his second term to turn kildare around in 98. It took Pat Gilroy 3 years to turn Dublin around. While it took Jimmy Barry Murphy and Nicholas English years of bad defeats to turn their counties around in early 90s. It was not til the 4th year Kevin Walsh has turned Galway around. McEntee needs the same time.

I believed from the start of the year we wouldn't get promotion, the game with longford was a tough opener. If we won we would give Dublin a good rattle ( I know there is little evidence for that, just a gut feeling in that Meath are due performance v Dublin in the Meath v Dublin rivalry. Its a gut feeling based on no evidence other then also for me McEntee all year for me is setting a Meath team up to play Dublin tactically. ) Dublin of course will win and we will get knocked out of the championship in mid July.I believe next year we will see some sort of real progress next eg promotion to div 1 or defeat of top div 1 team in the championship)..And in year 4 I believe then we will see real progres eg div 1 football super 8 and pushing for leinster title. Thats only my opinion. I could be wrong. Its just my opinion. But I believe we are at least 24 months away from where we need to be. But u never know.

There are three massives issues for Meath in my opinion and of course underage needs to improve also.

1 The county the players are lacking serious belief in themselves that will take years of good management by good manager eg McEntee to turn around. We need to give this management time, we need lots of patience. As we will have many ups and downs to go yet.

2 Secondly a style of play that is modern and works. The way we won 7 Sams with traditional kick and catch long balls into forward line is not fit for purpose. Eitheir is the way other kick and catch counties won All Irelands not fit fot purpose eg Down and Galway. Football now is more possession based,more tactically driven and there must be more thought put into how a team must perform

Sean Boylans sucess was based on one tactic. That was organised choas. I know that makes no sense but let me try and explain. Every player fought for the ball like there life depended on it. There was no real tactic just get that ball into forward line as fast and as quick as you can and players like Geraghty and O Rourke had to fight tooth and nail to win possession. It was pretty basic tactically wise. But it was hugely sucessful and was actually very good to watch. Some of the football under Boylan was as good as kerry or Galway in 90s or 00s. There was great swashbuckling performances of brillant total football v Dublin 88 league final and 99 leinster final Offaly 98 99 Kerry 2015 and many more great games eg kildare 97 second game 2001 V Westmeath q final.

That system doesnt work anymore kicking long balls atop of your full forward line. Sweepers blanket defences kick out strategy are all changes since 2001..We have failed miserably to adapt. However I did actually think our performance v Westmeath on Sunday was a very modern style of play. I thought we played in an intelligent controlled and efficient way. We played like a modern team, like I would even say division 1 team. But that game is the only game I have seen that sort of efficent style for the full 70 mins. Before it was now and again. Its a start. But we now need to deliver it consistently. Against mid and then top div 2 teams. And then hopefully over a 2 to 3 year period we will see performances v div 1 teams. It will take time. But I thought Westmeath on Sunday was a real improvement even on wins we had v Down or louth or draw v Roscommon in the league. I have seen us hammer teams recently v Fermanagh Derry Clare. But this performance was more measured and more cleverer and well organised then I have seen. The next step is to see us perform like this consistently. I n the Longford game we could see a performance that is less impressive. We need to be patient.

3 Thirdly we have had three problem areas. First area in the half back line. We havent had a top class wing back since O Connell and an effective centre back since McManus. All the top teams have top class half backs eg Keegan Mcarthy McCaffrey Lacey. It is the most important area of the field in modern football. It where attacks start. If you have a strong half back line this is massive. We struggled at 5 6 and 7 all decade long. However I believe at the end of the league our half back line was improved compared to last year or even the start of this years league.

The moving of Donal keogham our best player a player who would walk onto 80s or 90s team from corner back to centre back is massive. He is wasted at 2. He always reminded me of Karl Lacey. And karl lacey was pivotal to Donegal sucess and the moving of him from the corner was a masterstroke by McGuiness.

Moving keoghan means for the first time in a long time, we have our best player in the half back line. He offers attacking threat which he showed on Sunday with a goal..But he offers leadership and football ability in this most important sector of the field.. He needs to learn how to hold the middle. But overall when he has played in the half back line v Second half Cork last year, louth this year and last year, Byrne cup campaign 2018, v Roscommon and Down 2018. When he played in the half back line in only those games recently we didnt lose any of them. Moving keoghan to 6 is massive plus. While two McEntees on wings have been effective and playing well.

Shane McEntee for me in the poor team performances v Tipp and Cavan was one of the few who kept trying to the very end. His performance last game v louth was very good. He is improving and needs to still to learn more defensive wing back play which will come with experience. But his atitude is top notch and we could at long last solve a problem position we had for years, the number 7 position.

James McEntee has been really impressive. He was wing forward. But could never find consistency in his play. He also suffered injuries. But the moving of James to wing back has been a great move. Any time he has played there we havent lost eg second half v Cork last year and Down louth and Westmeath game this year. He could become a really important player for us at 5.