Meath GAA discussion thread

CrabRevolution

Hammer Archer wrote: »

I think it's more the unfairness of reserve teams playing exceptionally strong teams (for JFC) in the first round or two of the championship before those players get SFC game time making them ineligible for the rest of the JFC. It means whichever team is unfortunate enough to get them in round 1 is at a distinct disadvantage to a team that gets the same team in round 6.

Looking at the JFC this year doesnt seem to support that notion. In group A Dunshaughlin and Seneschalstown's both lost their Round 1 games, when they were at their "strongest", but won their round 5 games when they're at their "weakest". What's Drumconrath and Kilmainhamwood's excuse for losing to a senior 2nd team in the last round?

Same in group 2. Moylagh's first 2 games were against first teams, while Summerhill's were against 2 second teams. According to your theory, Moylagh should have benefited by playing the 2nd teams later in the group, but instead they only won one match.

Truth is that a lot of these teams are just not good enough for the grade they are in. It's for this exact reason they wanted to restructure the championships, to cut these dead wood clubs from bloated divisions.

Hammer Archer

I'm not really familiar with the makeup of the reserve teams this season. But I know last season, the likes of O'Mahony's, Dunboyne and Summerhill had very strong teams early on in the group stages only to gradually get weaker as the groups went on. They still made the knockouts but all three were easily beaten in the quarters if I remember correctly.
I'm not against reserve teams in the JFC, but I think it would be fairer if these teams play each other first as much as possible.

U21 hurlers are into a second All Ireland final in a row after demolishing Kerry 1-21 to 1-12 in Trim. Jack Regan once again was the scorer in chief. I think he ended with 11 or 12 points to his name.
The final will be in Thurles on September 10th against Mayo.

What a year it has been for the hurlers. Christy Ring champions, U21 and Minor B All Ireland finalists. Let's just forget about the seniors' league campaign.

iDave

That's some win against a county that's usually a bit ahead of us in hurling. Well done to the lads.

Hammer Archer

Day of shocks in the SFC! St. Pat's beat Dunboyne while Tones beat NOM.

iDave

Double score win for Trim in the IFC 0-16 0-08 against Castletown

Hammer Archer

Another local derby loss for Ratoath. Now we have to get something from Duleek in our last game to avoid a relegation playoff.
Serious improvement needed next season if we stay up. But between last year's intercounty season, last year's county and provincial championships, this year's intercounty season and the county and All Ireland club championship, a lot of these players haven't had a break in nearly 2 years.

rpurfield

Hammer Archer wrote: »

Another local derby loss for Ratoath. Now we have to get something from Duleek in our last game to avoid a relegation playoff.
Serious improvement needed next season if we stay up. But between last year's intercounty season, last year's county and provincial championships, this year's intercounty season and the county and All Ireland club championship, a lot of these players haven't had a break in nearly 2 years.

I would imagine Ratoath would beat Duleek, Duleek don't seem to be at the races this year at all. Anyone any idea when the last round of group games is on?

Hammer Archer

rpurfield wrote: »

I would imagine Ratoath would beat Duleek, Duleek don't seem to be at the races this year at all. Anyone any idea when the last round of group games is on?

You'd think they'd be in a couple of weeks. No point in delaying it (except maybe for clubs with U21 hurlers).
Hope you're right about Duleek. At least we can play our full team in the All Ireland Sevens tournament next month now that we're out.

CrabRevolution

Duleek/Bellewstown are to Meath Senior football what Bray Wanderers are to the League of Ireland. Despite having few or no star names, they'll miraculously cling to their status every year despite looking hopeless at times.

I reckon Ballinlough will go down. They'd a decent year last year, but I can't remember the last time an intermediate champion didn't have a bit of a bounce in their first year senior.

Looking like a probable Ballinlough/Duleek/Moynalvey relegation playoff. Moynalvey I reckon are the strongest of the 3.

rpurfield

There's a round of hurling on this week coming isn't there. What's left in the hurling championships?

Hammer Archer

rpurfield wrote: »

There's a round of hurling on this week coming isn't there. What's left in the hurling championships?

Still two rounds left in the group stages which will be played over the next two weekends.
The last outstanding group games in the IFC will be played the weekend after next. I'd hope the last SFC group games would be played the weekend before the All Ireland final.

Hammer Archer

You should never hope for anything when it comes to Meath GAA. Last round of SFC group games to be played on the weekend of September 24th/25th.

rpurfield

Farcical delay now after squeezing in all them games over two weeks.

Hibbeler

https://soundcloud.com/lmfmradio/sunday-sport-new-meath-manager-andy-mc

good interview with Andy McEntee on LMFM

Hammer Archer

Cautiously optimistic about next season. I think we really need to go all out to get out of division 2. Crazy that in the 9 seasons of the division 1-4 setup, we've spent 8 of them in division 2.

Minor hurlers play Kerry in the MHC B final to try and deny Kerry a 5 in a row.

Huntergonzo

Hammer Archer wrote: »

Cautiously optimistic about next season. I think we really need to go all out to get out of division 2. Crazy that in the 9 seasons of the division 1-4 setup, we've spent 8 of them in division 2.

Minor hurlers play Kerry in the MHC B final to try and deny Kerry a 5 in a row.

It's a damning indictment of Meath's lack of progress and development at intercounty level, I think the last time we were in Division 1 was 2006, but that was under the A B league system.

I like McEntee, I think he's made of much tougher stuff than O'Dowd and I thought his interview was optimistic and determined, particularly his insistence that staying in Div2 doesn't interest him at all.

I think the biggest problem we have in Meath though is our poor club football, ok there are some good teams but the Meath club championship structure is very poor. 3 groups of 6 is ridiculous and it takes a lot of the competitive edge out of our club players, you shouldn't be able to lose anymore than 1 game and qualify for the KO stages. This needs to be addressed urgently in my view.

Hammer Archer

Huntergonzo wrote: »

It's a damning indictment of Meath's lack of progress and development at intercounty level, I think the last time we were in Division 1 was 2006, but that was under the A B league system.

I like McEntee, I think he's made of much tougher stuff than O'Dowd and I thought his interview was optimistic and determined, particularly his insistence that staying in Div2 doesn't interest him at all.

I think the biggest problem we have in Meath though is our poor club football, ok there are some good teams but the Meath club championship structure is very poor. 3 groups of 6 is ridiculous and it takes a lot of the competitive edge out of our club players, you shouldn't be able to lose anymore than 1 game and qualify for the KO stages. This needs to be addressed urgently in my view.

The problem is that it was addressed (to an extent) but then the clubs sh@t themselves and reversed the decision to make the championships 4 groups of 4.

Huntergonzo

Hammer Archer wrote: »

The problem is that it was addressed (to an extent) but then the clubs sh@t themselves and reversed the decision to make the championships 4 groups of 4.

That is true, the clubs didn't exactly cover themselves in glory during that debacle and in fairness the restructure was only marginally better than what we currently have. It was going to be 4 groups of 4 but 12 teams would still qualify for the KO stages and only 1 team was to be relegated, that's still pretty poor.

CrabRevolution

I don't think we've been in the top 8 of any league format since we reached the final in 2000.

We were a yo yo team for a good few years around the end of Boylan's reign. Meath were relegated from a (16 team!) division one in 2001, 2004 and 2006. We were promoted from division 2 in 2003 and 2005 without winning it, and won the division 2 title in 2007 under Colm Coyle so were promoted to the new 8 team division 2.

It made it somewhat strange 5 years or so ago, when Meath dropped from division 2 to 3, you'd lads going "I've been following Meath for decades and I've never seen them this low!". If they remembered only 10 years back they'd have seen Meath being in that same position 4 times in 6 years. The divisions hadn't changed much, they'd just changed the names.

Hammer Archer

Minor hurlers were beaten in the All Ireland B final.
Was level with just over 5 to go but Kerry hit 2-3 without reply to win their fifth title in a row 4-17 to 3-11. Up to the U21s next weekend to get the job done.

rpurfield

With that being a 5 in a row for Kerry in the B Minor surely they should be stepped up to the proper championship?

On the footballers, I think it's a given to be back where we all want to be we need to be in Division 1. I know you could point to Tipp, Tyrone and to a smaller extent Galway doing well this year, but it proves the exception rather than the rule. Listening to Andy McEntee last week was refreshing, I don't think we will be subjected to endless talk of 3 or 5 year plans with him.

CrabRevolution

Kerry played in Munster until 2014 but it's an utterly huge gap to try and bridge. They usually took 2 absolute tankings every year and never looked remotely competitive. In 2014 they lost by 32 points to Cork, and then 32 points again to Clare before going on to win their 3rd AI Minor B in a row.

Hammer Archer

rpurfield, any idea what happened to St. Pat's hurling team? A couple of yer players are playing for Ratoath now.

rpurfield

Hammer Archer wrote: »

rpurfield, any idea what happened to St. Pat's hurling team? A couple of yer players are playing for Ratoath now.

Lack of bodies from what I know. A good number of the team over the last few years were of a, shall we say, mature age. So when they dropped off we were lacking in players. It was a shame because we had some good players who I assume would now be with yourselves. The real problem is the last run at hurling in underage was when I was 13-14 so lads are getting on, great work being done with the kids now but it will take a while to come through at adult level.

Hammer Archer

Team for tomorrow's U21 B Final named:

Meath (U21HC v Mayo): Charlie Bird; Conor Dempsey, Iarla Hughes, Liam Ferguson; Sean Coloe, Ronan Ryan, David Reilly; Sean Quigley, Sean McGrath; Jack Regan, Stefan Kelly, Eamon O Donnacha; Gavin McGowan, Ross Ryan, Luke Martyn.

After the JFC quarter finals, the semi final lineup is as follows:
Dunsany v Skryne
Bective v Carnaross


You'd expect Bective to finally get the job done, but Dunsany certainly have suffered enough heartbreak over the years in Junior finals to push them on.

Hammer Archer

1-7 to 9 points up in the U21 final. Should be much further ahead. Some bad wides combined with only one Mayo wide and some dodgy refereeing means we're struggling a lot more than we should. Jack Regan has been awful in the first half.

Hammer Archer

All Ireland Champions

mattser

Congratulations lads

Perhaps Dr Gerry was right after all

Great to see strides been made in Meath hurling and it would be brilliant if they can really drive on from here and become the 'Tipp footballers' of hurling. Christy Ring, u21B, minor runners up......hasnt been a bad year for Meath.

culbaire

Congrats to Meath U-21 hurlers on a great victory. Also to Mayo for providing stern opposition. Both U-21 Finals really lived up to expectations and were a wonderful advertisement for hurling.