Meath GAA discussion thread

Hammer Archer

Eastern Gaels' application to be affiliated as a new club was approved 30 votes to 26 last night.

meath12

What time will gates open tomorrow? I’d say there’s going to be a massive crowd, I want to get there early to get good seats.

Hammer Archer

As expected, back to earth with a bang. Shooting the lights out against teams with mediocre defences is all well and good but as soon as we come up against any sort of defence, we crumble. An average of nearly 19 points per game conceded so far is simply not good enough. Not exactly sure of the reason for McGill's absence, but it is certainly being felt at the back.

Cavan_King

Disappointing result because of the margin but I think if you’d asked 99% of football supporters prior to the League who would be promoted, they’d have said Derry & Dublin.

They are two Div 1 teams operating in Division 2.

If Meath can finish 3rd in Division 2, given they are in transition, it will be a huge advancement. Then you are looking at an easier Division next year with teams like Monaghan and Donegal, appearing to be in decline, being relegated.

On the bright side too, Jordan Morris extremely lucky not to get a straight red card and miss the Louth game next week.

rpurfield

I didn’t expect a win yesterday but it was disappointing all the same. The two goals were soft enough and really the killers as well but then again Derry kicked a good few wides. Deffo a learning for the team Colm’s style is good to look at but won’t work against that packed defence

enricoh

Louth for Leinster?! Only form team at the minute anyway. Who'll join limerick for the drop, don't think we are out of the woods yet. Us v Kildare the last day could well be for who's going down.

rolling boh

Meath will beat Limerick that's six points Dublin match in Navan have a chance of getting something .Will judge Dublin a bit more after the Derry game but have been to their games and they are struggling a bit .Meath down in Newbridge could go either way Kildare are no great shakes either .

rpurfield

Really should have won on Sunday, I'm still at a loss as to why we had no-one at home leading to their goal. I thought we handled them better than Derry given its a really similar style apart from the last maybe 15 minutes.

Stooped

Seems like Eastern Gaels will be conceding their first league match tomorrow against Cortown. Can't field a team. You'd wonder about their future when 90% of their transfers probably have to be approved by the Cilles.

Hammer Archer

Serious deja vu between this season and 2011. New manager, won the first two games in the league and (in 2011 at least) still got relegated.

Hammer Archer

Dreadful. Again, goals masking a poor performance. Though the draw may have all but ensured survival in division 2. Assuming Derry beat Clare next time out, I don't think two of Kildare, Clare and Limerick can finish ahead of us.

5 games in and we've still yet to concede less than 16 points in a game.

enricoh

Thought 2 of either Dublin, Derry n Kildare would be getting promoted with us snapping at their heels. Kildare have been woeful altogether n us not much better.

Hammer Archer

Looking at the scoring stats throughout the divisions, we're the joint second highest goal scorers across all 4 divisions (behind only Cork) but we're the fourth lowest point scorers (only ahead of Waterford, London and Tipperary). It's basically advertising that, if you can stop us getting goals, there's no way we're going to outscore an opposition side on points alone.

Cavan_King

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120324602#Comment_120324602

Looks like O’Rourke is getting a rude awakening to the intercounty game. Meath are lucky that they beat Cork early on because form has really reversed since.

rpurfield

If anyone has a spare for Saturday can you drop me a PM, missed out on Ticketmaster 🙄

tanko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120356498#Comment_120356498

For the rugby???

rpurfield

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120358323#Comment_120358323

Might be easier to get.

tanko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120358507#Comment_120358507

How many tickets were available for the Meath game?

rpurfield

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120358924#Comment_120358924

No idea to be too honest. It was announced yesterday you needed a ticket for u16s which wasn’t needed for other games. They were all gone in a blink. Capacity according to a Google search is 11k

Hammer Archer

Useless. Bar a fluke goal, it's the same old performance against Dublin. Shooting from ridiculous angles.

Edit: Well, that's that. Embarrassingly naive defending having so many players forward playing against the breeze.

snowgal

Yea not much to say really, the silence here says it all. All I was looking for was something different, no major expectations just to see something is changing there. I didn’t see anything yesterday, dunno if it’s just the blue jersey fear is still there but they went back playing to the past 4 years, that in between going nowhere style….. what happened to the flair of the cork game

rrs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120375785#Comment_120375785

The way Cork set up in that game suited Meaths catch and kick style. Meath breezed through for scores with loads of room from the Cork backs.

CrabRevolution

Cork were one of the Most defensively naïve teams I've seen in a while. Cork tipped over points for the whole game (0-19 would be enough to win most games) but just kept getting sliced open for goals by the Meath forwards. Same with the Clare match.

I think once opposition defences started getting bedded in as the league progressed, the goals that sustained us in the first few games dried up.

rpurfield

Good win for the 20's in Longford. From what I've heard on it the weather was absolutely terrible and not exactly conductive to good football. Hopefully they can kick on and do well in the championship, we are long overdue a run at U20 level. Given that most of the team were involved with the Leinster and All Ireland wins in 2020 and 2021 you would be hopeful.

CrabRevolution

The Stats and Solos twitter account is good fun, ranking teams statistically and predicting games and scenarios (they posted a thread in this forum about simulating the All Ireland Championship a few days ago).

In any case we're apparently the dullest county in terms of ranking volatility the last few decades:

https://twitter.com/StatsAndSolos/status/1633392224770637824

This validates my doubts whenever I've heard drama queens in the last decade declare they've just seen the "Worst ever Meath performance". I have been following Meath football only since just before the start of that chart so don't remember the glory days. Aside from some infrequent brief dips up and down (All Ireland Semi final in 09, First Round Qualifier in 2018, Division 3 in 2013, Division 1 in 2020) we have a remarkable knack of consistently finishing mid division 2, and later round qualifiers.

Hammer Archer

I think it shows clearly what we already know. We really are just incredibly mediocre over the past 20 years. Next season will be the 16th season since the leagues reverted from 1A/B and 2A/B to the current divisions 1-4. In 16 league seasons, Meath will have spent 1 season in division 3, 1 season in division 1 and 14 seasons in division 4. I haven't checked, but I don't think any team has spent as long in division 2 in that time.

It's difficult to say when the "worst" Meath team was. From 2002-2009, we didn't make a Leinster final and from 2005-2009 we never even made a Leinster semi final. In that time, we went out tamely to Fermanagh (twice), Cavan, Laois and were hockeyed by Limerick (not to mention the regular defeats by Wexford). However, in that time, we did manage two All Ireland semi finals.

CrabRevolution

In the space of 3 years that mid 2000s team were relegated twice from a 16 team division 1.

In between they lost the 2005 league final; Meath were two points up deep into injury time and repeatedly won the ball in our defence only to hand it back to Monaghan. Darren Fay won a ball and hoofed it out aimlessly, clearly thinking the full time whistle would blow. Instead Monaghan got it and won one last free, which they lumped harmlessly into the 6ft+ Mark Ward who was standing on the goal line without a Monaghan player near him....and proceeded to punch it into his own net. Meath lost by a point.

It's on youtube if you hate yourselves enough.

The Golden Miller

As someone who takes a passing interest in Meath football, as at their best they intrigued me, I can honestly say this is the worst Meath team in living memory. I slated them on and off the last couple of years, and nothing has changed.

What makes this team so poor, or any of the teams from the last decade, is psychological, with many people running me off the thread disagreeing over the years. This is what makes it different than Meath just being bad, they actually aren't, as talented as anyone, but a broken team psychologically.

This started under the rein of Mick O'Dowd. Although well intentioned, he pretty much axed experienced battle hardened players, replacing them with youth, many playing even intermediate club football at the time, thrown in the deep end. And so followed, hammering after hammering from Dublin on these young players, and something died in Meath football over this period, which hasn't been put right.

Meath had their foot in the neck of Tyrone and Donegal on at least 3 big occasions in the All-Ireland knock out rounds over the last decade. And when they seen the winning line, completely buckled every time. This disbelief has seeped into the culture of the team and it's very hard to put right.

From the outside looking in, I don't think it matters what players start, or who they even are. Meath teams at their worst still played with heart and fight, the current lot are completely devoid of both. The problem is deeper than players and tactics, and until put right, Meath won't improve.

How to go about putting that right is hard to know, but a good start would be to play a top team and actually see it out. The fear Meath show now is incredible compared to what came before. But there's something broken in the mindset of the county

The Golden Miller

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120398208#Comment_120398208

The Meath team of mid to late 00s could still raise their game at times and play with belief, they weren't the best but could rally at times. Stark contrast to the current lot

Hammer Archer

No plan going forward. No plan while defending. No urgency whatsoever for the entirety of the game. 21 minutes playing with the wind before we got our first score. We just look like we have no gameplan whatsoever. We would win a free inside our own half and our players would be jogging forward with their backs to the play.

This was an awful Kildare side and we made it like a training session for them. If one of Cavan or Clare make it to their respective provincial finals, we'll be in the Tailteann Cup. Being honest, that may be the only way we'd have a chance at winning another game this season.