Meath GAA discussion thread

CrabRevolution · 05-07-2021 11:59am

sheroman01 wrote: »

I see where you’re coming from but the point of 2nd/3rd teams is that they have enough players to fulfil their fixtures and be competitive in their own right without relying on 1st team players. Sure any club could lose their first 2 or 3 games, how does that differ from any other competition. Having this championship start so early actually allows a lot of 2nd/3rd teams to strengthen their teams with senior players.

I 100% agree as it happens, teams should be able to field on their own numbers and not need to be playing the same players on 2 teams. I remember a debate only 2/3 years ago where some clubs were complaining about having A and B league fixtures on the same weekend because they used mostly the same players for both teams; openly admitting to violating the spirit if not the rules of the competition. Some walkovers have already been given in the first round of the premier last weekend, which begs the question why they bothered entering a team at all.

My point was more that having one big group of 10 teams doesn't always mean more games, since it means a lot of teams will quickly fall away from the top teams and give walkovers. Sometimes a shorter, sharper competition is better for maintaining interest. If they wanted more games why couldn't they run lower tier leagues, like in hurling?

dobman88 · 05-07-2021 1:36pm

CrabRevolution wrote: »

I 100% agree as it happens, teams should be able to field on their own numbers and not need to be playing the same players on 2 teams. I remember a debate only 2/3 years ago where some clubs were complaining about having A and B league fixtures on the same weekend because they used mostly the same players for both teams; openly admitting to violating the spirit if not the rules of the competition. Some walkovers have already been given in the first round of the premier last weekend, which begs the question why they bothered entering a team at all.

My point was more that having one big group of 10 teams doesn't always mean more games, since it means a lot of teams will quickly fall away from the top teams and give walkovers. Sometimes a shorter, sharper competition is better for maintaining interest. If they wanted more games why couldn't they run lower tier leagues, like in hurling?

Wa surprised to see Drumconrath 1st team playing in Premier 3. They beat our 3rd team in the 1st game. They had been playing Tailteann cup so I assumed they would be in Junior championship since the rules changed to accommodate clubs like that so they'd be guaranteed a spot. Not sure it makes sense to allow them to drop down to what is essentially the B leagues.

With regards teams grabbing players from senior etc, we have 40-60 lads at training for the junior section which contains our 3rd and 4th teams. There are a couple of lads who would be expecting to play for the 2nd team this year and pushing onto the senior panel but the reasons range from lads back from a year or 2 abroad to lads just coming back from injury. Get them game time and moving up.

We also have an unwritten club policy that minors coming up must play junior for a year before moving up to 1st and 2nd teams. We shipped a big defeat (1-17 to 7) for our 4th team against Navans 3rd team on Sunday but we got all our young lads available on the pitch and they will come on for it in what was a physical game.

I suppose my overall point is, we have 60 lads looking to play on 2 teams. We dont need to take lads from 1st or 2nd team as it would only make lads lose interest and numbers would drop for later in the year. We've actually lost a handful of players who got called up to 1st and 2nd team so we need every lad on 3rd and 4th team interested and playing regularly.

rpurfield · 05-07-2021 3:41pm

Just on yesterday's match I thought once Seamus Lavin got to grips with the corner forward we were never really in trouble. It seemed the tactic was to sit deep and break by lamping the ball into him for a mark. Still hard to know where we are at, the rankings thread on here has us ranked 9th last I looked at it and I think that's about right. We are probably just below the bottom of the top grouping really.

Just on the Premier Championships I like that idea Dobman of the young lads playing a year at the lower grades. Especially at the minute with minor being 17 it gives them a year to come up and fill out a bit. A year of playing with lads heading the other direction would be helpful for them also.

dobman88 · 05-07-2021 3:45pm

rpurfield wrote: »

Just on the Premier Championships I like that idea Dobman of the young lads playing a year at the lower grades. Especially at the minute with minor being 17 it gives them a year to come up and fill out a bit. A year of playing with lads heading the other direction would be helpful for them also.

Yeah, we have a couple of lads 40, 41, 42. Majority in our 30s and lads not from the area. And then a load of 17,18 up this year. My 5th year with the club now and they're the best bunch I've seen come up. Like sponges and take absolutely everything on board. Not afraid to get stuck in either. We will take a few beatings this year maybe but they'll come good. It's a policy I like tbh.

rpurfield · 16-07-2021 11:27am

The 20s were a touch unlucky last night. A really poor first half killed them in the end despite a spirited second half. You could take some confidence from it though that the players are coming through once they are minded.

Hammer Archer · 16-07-2021 12:27pm

Not a great week for any of our teams. 2020 minors were beaten by Derry in the All Ireland semi final. Our goal seemed to kick Derry into gear. We were unlucky to lose Conor Gray so early as Derry completely dominated midfield. We'll never know what effect the long delay had but the team never seemed as fluid since the return as they did last year.

The ladies put in an excellent performance to come up just short against Cork! Had a goal disallowed and missed a huge number of gilt edged frees whic was the difference as they lost by 2 points. Nonetheless, not a bad return to the senior championship.

Minor hurlers were convincingly beaten by Dublin in the Leinster Quarter Final.

Senior hurlers actually went and won a game in the Joe McDonagh Cup against Kerry. Unfortunately, we still ended up in the relegation playoff thanks to our heavy defeat to Down. Would be an absolute disaster if we were to be relegated, especially given the expansion of the competition. Need a massive performance against Kildare as they were only narrowly beaten in both their games against Westmeath and Carlow.

It was always going to be difficult for the U20s last night, especially after only 2 points in the first half. But good to see a bit of fight in the second half after conceding 2 quick goals.

Though our U20 hurlers stopped the rot in easily beating Wicklow, albeit in the B championship. We seem to be falling back with the hurlers again. Compare Kildare beating Wexford in the Leinster U20 championship while we're sticking with the B championship yet again.

So what do we think about Sunday? Everyone talking about unrest in the Dublin camp but I personally don't buy it. They generally gradually build during the Leinster and I can't see anyone beating them this season again. For us, if Dublin want to, they could beat us by any amount. If they go through the game in 1st gear, then maybe we can keep it semi-competitive but even if we were to cause Dublin issues, they can up their game and easily put 10-15 points on the board in a 10 minute spell. Quite honestly, if we can keep the defeat to below 10 points, we'd be doing much better than we have for a long, long time.

CrabRevolution · 17-07-2021 4:03pm

Have my tickets for Croke Park tomorrow; first inter county game since Galway in the league last year! I'd take a 10 point loss if we at least gave them something to think about for a period of time. In our last 2 meetings it never seemed at any stage that we would win.

It was nice to finally get a win vs. Kerry in the hurling but difficult to know what to make of it considering Kerry's only objective was to avoid defeat by more than 4 points.

I agree about our underage too. It seems in recent years that teams like Kildare, Carlow, Westmeath etc. have all abandoned the B competitions to focus on the Leinster Championship proper, and they all have an odd scalp to their name now. In Meath though I get the impression we seek to have a crack at Leinster but that the B competitions are the main focus. It's all well and good to be hammering Wicklow and Mayo underage, but it's not exactly a platform for competing with the better counties when the players start playing at adult level.

vapor trails · 18-07-2021 9:06am

With regards to the U20's, whatever progression process they are applying the Dub's seem to massively improve their players from 17-19. Meath and Kildare have won the last 3 Leinster MFC's between them but Dublin seem to keep on putting us away reasonably comfortably when it comes to U20's. As for the seniors today, the metric I want to see is us to be within 3/4 pts of them after 40 mins. That to me represents an improvement. Last year I fed myself a bunch of hopeful narratives along the lines of "Well if we do X/Y/Z we can pull something crazy off here" Then for Dubs to have the match over after around 15 minutes was so demoralising. The one thing I would say is the match has to be seen as the opportunity of a lifetime. There are some stories that etch you into GAA history. Beating Dublin and being the ones who have felled the beast, will be in its own regard one of the great landmark GAA achievements (Think Seamus Darby for Offaly 1982 but even bigger again). Also similar in a way to '91. The saga took on a narrative of its own and essentially turn into a test series that we won. That was the landmark GAA moment of the year (No offence to Down who won Sam that year) but that's all anyone can recount from that football season.

Just going back to last years fixture, it was softness and the fact we never came close to landing punch. Today I want to see a rabid, wild wounded animal hunger in the Meath eyes today. If you are going to go down, do so bravely.

enricoh · 18-07-2021 4:05pm

I know the game isn't the big draw it used to be but you'd think they could put it on rte news channel or something. No point trying to tell my oul lad about Chromecast n gaago!

Hammer Archer · 18-07-2021 4:49pm

Decent start from us but of course we're denied a blatant penalty (Dublin went down the other end) and Dublin get one for less.

mickrourke · 18-07-2021 5:48pm

Not a bad start to the 2nd half!

mickrourke · 18-07-2021 5:48pm

Hammer Archer · 18-07-2021 5:52pm

Hate these water breaks. Any momentum completely gone

enricoh · 18-07-2021 6:22pm

Fair play, they died with there boots on, could have gone hiding after half time.

It's a killer losing kickouts against the dubs, more so in that heat.

Hammer Archer · 18-07-2021 6:24pm

At least we showed fight and left the field with absolutely nothing left in the tank. That was Dublin's first goal they've conceded in Leinster since 2018 and their closest match in the province since 2013 when we lost by 3.

Had we gotten the deserved penalty, who knows, it could've been different. But at least we've something to build on instead of the usual surrender.

vapor trails · 19-07-2021 7:08am

Have to be happy with that performance. Could have easily dropped the head after halftime. One moment I particularly enjoyed was McEntee's shoulder. It was a beefy but fair challenge and if I was a Meath player I would have taken a bit of motivation from it. Jordan Morris missed a couple of handy enough free's in the first half. He did dust himself off after halftime to kick some nice ones but I still don't think we have our free taking sorted. I was pulling my hair out when Thomas O'Reilly took a free towards the end a few minutes after James McEntee Kicked a quality 45. I was like "WTF is McEntee not kicking this"! In fairness to O'Reilly, he poached about 10 yards and improved his angle while he was hanging around to take it. Another high point was how Matthew Costello took his goal. I don't think he's missed a one on one in championship football yet. Really is a calm and composed finisher. The main thing is the performance should bring on squad unity and motivate us for another crack at them next year. Andy McEntee has to be given some credit too, the lads played for him in the 2nd half.

Hammer Archer · 20-07-2021 9:29pm

U20 hurlers into the All Ireland B final after beating Down 3-16 to 2-12.

rpurfield · 21-07-2021 9:06pm

Haven't been on here all week because I'm off work! I thought on Sunday we showed far too much respect in the first half. There were scores in the first half that Dublin got without a hand being laid on them. It's just a massive shame there's no back door this year. Taking that second half performance into qualifiers would've been huge.

Cavan_King · 22-07-2021 3:01pm

I'm hearing Dunboyne at 9/2 is a good bet for the Senior Championship lads. They absolutely annihilated a strong looking Kells team last night in the Feis Cup.

Hammer Archer · 23-07-2021 6:45pm

Dunboyne must be hurting after not getting out of the groups the last two seasons. Wouldn't surprise me if they won it this year.

For Ratoath, not sure if the Wallace's will be featuring (I've moved away from the area). If they do, then we've a great chance for three in a row. But can't see us doing it if they're not going to commit.

Hammer Archer · 24-07-2021 6:05pm

Minors through to the Leinster final again (less than a month after the last one). Good second half got us by Louth and we'll face Dublin in the final.

Hammer Archer · 27-07-2021 9:17am

Still no fixture set for the U20 B Hurling final meaning the date for the 2020 hurling finals can't be set which in turn means the dates for the start of the 2021 championships can't be set. Wonderful.

Ladies are up against Armagh in the All Ireland Quarter Final in Clones on Sunday at 2pm. It'll either be on TG4 itself or streamed online.

Hammer Archer · 01-08-2021 3:06pm

Ladies doing brilliantly in the quarter final so far. 15 minutes to go and 8 points up.

Hammer Archer · 01-08-2021 3:54pm

3-15 to 1-14 it finishes. Excellent performance and it could have been more had they taken their goal chances. They've improved immeasurably, even since last year.

When was the last time the ladies team made a senior semi final? I seem to remember them getting to one in the late 90s but not sure about more recently.

LeoB · 01-08-2021 11:56pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117630635#Comment_117630635

I dont come on here very often but enjoy the passion Meath fans have.

There is not a huge gap between Dublin and Meath sides, just experience. Yeah it counts for a lot but that comes with time and will come with patience to Meath.

We can argue and debate frees and penalties but speaking to people they felt Meath focused too much on physically upsetting Dublin in second half? It was like a throw back to 20 years ago. The Dublin team and all top sides dont get phased like this or react as they would have previously. Passion gets you so far but calmness is vital. Sometimes with passion in heat of battle it can be damaging to team if not controlled. With so many young lads that is hard to control and why time is essential to this Meath squad.

More than anything Leinster needs a Meath/Dublin final. Meath have the players it just taking time.

rpurfield · 02-08-2021 5:24pm

Great result for the minors today. I haven't seen it but it looked comfortable enough. Hopefully the lads can go on one step further than last years minors at least and win the All Ireland Semi final. From what I seen previously Hughie Corcoran seems a talent and a half.

Also a savage result for the Ladies team yesterday. I wouldn't watch them religiously but every time I do I'm more and more impressed with them. It seems getting over the line in the Intermediate last year has just brought them on in spades. They won't fear whoever they play in the semi final anyway.

Great result for the Camoige team too. What way does that leave them for qualifying?

Hammer Archer · 02-08-2021 6:57pm

Minor game was basically won by the first water break when we were 2-4 to no score up. Scoring rate was a bit worrying after that as we only scored another point until half time, 2 points up to the second water break and 1-1 afterwards (the goal was a lob of the keeper after a bad kickout).

Hughie Corcoran looks like a very decent free taker. Some excellent long range frees from him.

All Ireland semi final will likely be against Roscommon (unless Sligo pull off a shock). No easy games at this point anyway, but Roscommon beat both Galway and Mayo (convincingly) in Connacht so we're likely going to need to massively improve to make the final.

Hammer Archer · 03-08-2021 8:00pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117693577#Comment_117693577

I'm confused about this. Having rolled out the welcome mat for Dublin for large parts of the first half, we upped the physicality and the quality of our play in the second half and outscored Dublin by 1-7 to 0-2 until the start of injury time. That, to me, was Dublin being phased as they're simply not used to teams actually putting it up to them in Leinster.

And there is a monumental gap between Dublin and Meath, indeed between Dublin and pretty much every team in my view.

Hammer Archer · 05-08-2021 5:47pm

2020 hurling finals on at the weekend.

Friday at 7:15pm is the Junior 2 final between Boardsmill and Dunderry.

Saturday at 4:15pm is the Junior final between Ratoath and Kilmessan followed by the Intermediate final at 6:30pm between Boardsmill and Wolfe Tones.

Sunday is Ratoath and Trim double header with the Minor final at 1:30pm and the senior final at 3:30pm.

All the games will be streamed free on the Meath GAA Facebook live page.

Hammer Archer · 05-08-2021 7:35pm

For some reason, the ladies' semi final has been fixed for Tuam. Who on earth decided to drag both teams way out of the way when it could have been set for somewhere like Portlaoise?

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