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In fairness to you lad at least you came up with a coherent, albeit old school, strategy for the match. That's more than the Meath management did. And we definitely could've done with some aggression.
Crinigan (Meath) - Posts: 1352 - 23/11/2020 19:46:08 2314237 Link 13 |
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It's funny, I looked over old posts from last year after we were knocked at a super 8 stage when there was a similar end of season thread... The main themes were goalkeeper, free takers and attacking strategy. Over the winter I'd like to see: A) a couple of goalkeepers trained and 2/3 free takers identified and brought in (not Shane Walsh or Reilly). In addition I'd like us to come up with a better attacking strategy that doesn't just involve us breaking up the pitch like greyhounds gunning for goals or fisted points. More diagonals and follow up support play. We have forwards who can kick points all day on the loop but they never get these chances. It's always snap shots at a hundred miles an hour after we punch a hole via Cillian O Sullivan who is literally used as a bartering ram. Let's get more variation. Finally we need to get some aggression into these lads. They are too nice. Letting Dublin lads, young Dublin lads, walk all over them. Not being harsh but I'd like to have seen a few red card hits last weekend, you can make 3/4 of them in game and you'll only get one red I guarantee you ... small and McMahon and these lads do it regularly. Cynical hoors. We need a touch of that. Dare I say it could Steven Poacher be brought into the fold? Or someone to teach us to be more cynical. We seem to be awful naive. We're like a good college team. But this isn't college football. Crinigan (Meath) - Posts: 1352 - 23/11/2020 19:57:43 2314244 Link 17 |
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Awh jaysus your right ! A good hard shoulder and a yellow card was exactly what we needed ! Poor old Dublin would have sh##te themselves ! Lord almighty we lost by 21 points ! Dublin are well able to handle that stuff ! They were down to 14 men against kerry and still managed a draw last year in final ! The adapt better than anyone grahamc9897 (Meath) - Posts: 1175 - 23/11/2020 20:21:46 2314263 Link 18 |
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Its a shame that these are still our hot topics after a championship. A real shame. That post is every bit as applicable now as it was in 2019. To anyone interested, check out the latest GAA hour podcast with Colm Parkinson on Youtube or Spotify. Cian Ward is on it again. Great show. From the last 15/20 minutes till the end it focuses in on our Leinster Final and I think the lads hit the perfect tone to the plight of the championship as it stands. They also mention Connellan's open letter to the organisation, and stand by its message. Young_gael (Meath) - Posts: 596 - 23/11/2020 20:35:47 2314275 Link 18 |
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Mickey harte to take charge of louth on 3 year contract some coup from our neighbours with that one must be paying him some bucks for him to take that job Meath4Sam2020 (Meath) - Posts: 141 - 23/11/2020 20:42:50 2314281 Link 0 |
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One has to imagine. In all honesty thats a great appointment and I sincerely hope it bears fruit. Lets be real guys having a competetive Louth would add a lot to the area, same as the successful Cavan and Monaghan teams. There is a good knock-on effect. I wouldn't begrudge any of them any success, and this can only help Louth. They need a big boost. A lot of Louth posters seem to lurk on the Meath forums so here's a glass raised to you boys, good luck with the new manager. Young_gael (Meath) - Posts: 596 - 23/11/2020 21:07:18 2314308 Link 16 |
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https://www.rte.ie/sport/gaa/2020/1123/1179920-leinster-football-is-dead-connellans-boycott-call/ Have a read of Connellan's open letter to the GAA. The GAA is so far up Dublins hole its never coming back down. ALL COUNTIES SHOULD BOYCOTT THE LEINSTER CHAMPIONSHIP and concentrate on the league and their own club championship. meath87889699 (Meath) - Posts: 41 - 23/11/2020 22:13:28 2314366 Link 0 |
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Agreed.
Crinigan (Meath) - Posts: 1352 - 24/11/2020 07:39:39 2314439 Link 12 |
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Can you please copy in the youtube link Young_gael? Sorry I'm a bit of a dinosaur, I can't find it.
Htaem (Meath) - Posts: 8657 - 24/11/2020 09:35:26 2314475 Link 18 |
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maybe we look at our referees , and the CCC , who have taken all the physical contact out of the Club Game for years now. We area a great county of Referees..seem to have replaced being a great county of footballers.
Thelongwoodslasher (Meath) - Posts: 401 - 24/11/2020 09:36:49 2314477 Link 0 |
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https://play.acast.com/s/thegaahourwithcolmparkinson/tag%3Asoundcloud%2C2010%3Atracks%2F934547788 Here's a link to a website stream of the episode. Enjoy. Young_gael (Meath) - Posts: 596 - 24/11/2020 09:52:05 2314484 Link 19 |
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I think we will be judged from how teams fare against Dublin for reminder of championship. Meath looked extremely poor last Saturday but if Dublin saunter to All-Ireland win, it may take the heat off Andy and his team. Personally I think things could have been done alot better and we should have been much closer but time will tell. winatallcost (Meath) - Posts: 587 - 24/11/2020 11:23:43 2314552 Link 0 |
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Cheers Young_gael, very interesting listen. I don't know what to say about Dublin's monopoly at this stage, perhaps I'm late to the party when it comes to admitting there is a huge problem. I always believed (perhaps naively) that we could overcome the odds and start beating Dublin again. I grew up watching Meath consistently beating Dublin and even up until maybe 2014 you could say we were still giving them a good game (but not winning of course). However rather than close the gap we're very obviously falling further behind and I have to hold my hand up and admit that I was wrong in the belief that we could keep the pace without the resources to match. I think other counties outside of Leinster have the same blindspot as me though, they seem to think that the 10 other Leinster counties are hopeless (with special hatred often reserved for us specifically), without giving proper consideration to the situation. We have to play the Dubs early on each year and regularly ship heavy defeats which is very deflating. Whereas the likes of Kerry, Mayo and the Ulster teams have come through some good, hard battles beforehand against teams of a similar level, resulting in their confidence being much higher and the team generally being much more battled hardened. But the worrying thing is they keep talking about all the 'close' championship games and moral victories, almost forgetting that every single one ultimately ended in defeat since all they way back to 2014!!! We taked about such things aswell back in 2005, 2007, 2009, 2012 and 2013 and look at us now!! Now the Dubs themselves are proud of their team which is completely understandable and can get quite defensive when challenged. But I think they have to stop treating all of us as the enemy and realise that we all want a vibrat and competitive Leinster championship but it's consigned to history unless something drastic is done and done quickly. Final thing I'd say is, I'd love to see an independent review as to what exactly happened to the Leinster championship from 2000-2020. Nothing biased, just facts and figures will do. Htaem (Meath) - Posts: 8657 - 24/11/2020 11:56:23 2314578 Link 20 |
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I agree with you but I agree also with the point about refereeing. The Intermediate Football final this year being a case in point. Frees given that were never frees. Awful inconsistencies on players.
stillaroyal (Meath) - Posts: 225 - 24/11/2020 12:12:30 2314602 Link 0 |
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I am reminded of the days when Rugby in the Northern Hemisphere was amateur and in the Southern Hemisphere it was professional in all but name! New Zealand and Australia used to hammer all the Northern hemisphere teams routinely. Dublin are like the Southern Hemisphere teams - not quiet professional but certainly closer to it than any of the other teams in the country. They have the funding and infrastructure around them that sets them apart from every other team in the country. I think only Kerry and to a lesser extent Mayo, Tyrone (through Club Tyrone) and Donegal have structures that are anywhere near close to competing. Somewhere along the way, a restructure is going to have to be considered in terms of how funding is allocated. The big sponsors will nearly always go with the big teams and the players with the big counties will always be in personal demand as ambassadors, speakers etc. I will be shocked if Dublin don't beat Cavan by at least 10 points - and I suspect they will face Mayo in the final for their only real contest for the All Ireland. This is an exceptional Dublin team without a doubt and not to take away from them as players - I think they have a number of advantages that give them an edge that is almost impossible to compete with. I think the fact that Dublin clubs have only won the Club Championship 5 times since the 1990/91 season only emphasises the advantage that the Dublin County team enjoys - if it was purely a population thing would Dublin Clubs not win more often? Royalblufill (Meath) - Posts: 511 - 24/11/2020 13:19:40 2314651 Link 2 |
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I certainly am one who is not going to laugh at you, except for one issue. Do you honestly believe that a ref will give a yellow card for giving a Dublin player a shoulder. No they won't. But it appears to be a mindset that has crept into the Meath game in recent years. The shoulder to shoulder charge is still permitted by the Official Guide. And I agree that the players should have let Dublin knower that they were not going to be pushed around. Our defenders only very rarely got close enough to get a hand in when the Dublin player had to release the ball and thereby causing a possible turn over or a less than comfortable off load or an off balance kick. This may not happen every time but it has a better chance of happening if you are up close as compared to being 5 yards away. I heard the older people say that Micheal O'Brien and Kevin McConnell (both R.I.P) regularly forced the corner forward towards the corner flag and would dispossess them there as they had nowhere to go, nowadays Dublin appear to be able achieve this virtually in the middle of the pitch or indeed anywhere on the pitch with sheer numbers. Last Saturday night Shane Walsh was pinned in by two Dublin players close to the end line with no Meath player in support, why? They were away back the field probably 'on zonal defending duties' with the bloody ball as far as possible from our goals when at that time the best form of defence was to retain possession by having support there for the ball carrier with an enhanced chance of getting a score. Now if the Dublin defenders decided to shadow him from 5 yards away it is most likely that support would arrive but there was not a snowballs chance in hell of that happening. He was literally smothered by bodies in milliseconds. That was a crucial difference between the two teams last Saturday night. Maybe I am naive but surely our backs should have been closing in on the Dublin forwards while remaining goal side and close enough to turnover or get in a block most of the time. This was lamentably absent last Saturday night. I am not going to go away back to the past but back a bit nevertheless, just to the first half of last year's Leinster Final where many of Saturday's defenders gave textbook exhibitions of defending, especially in the first half only to become deflated because of failures up front to make any impression on the scoreboard and eventually Dublin flourished but not without having to sweat a little bit.
MillerX (Meath) - Posts: 1080 - 24/11/2020 15:25:51 2314743 Link 0 |
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Not a bad comparison, compare the physicality and overall fitness of O Callaghan and Paddy Small to Walsh and O Reilly (both fairly big men) like chalk and cheese. Dublin lads are not getting in that shape by doing a few laps and a bit of random gym work, this is where the funding and professionalism comes to the fore. One instance wher COC was being hopped off by three Meath men but took little out of him and he just calmly fisted over the bar. Doubt if there is much of an off season for Dublin. funding.facilites and expertise always available. Think Dublin clubs will become more dominant in years to come, County structures and funding now firmly in place and massive funding at their disposal will start to be pumped into club scene. Expect Cavan to put up a better show, championship games against good opposition (Monaghan, Down and Donegal) will stand to them. But Dublins by 8/10. seadog54 (Meath) - Posts: 2195 - 24/11/2020 19:49:19 2314921 Link 17 |
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Not sure we are too far off physically but psychologically we are way off... And we also need to deliver a gameplan that works for players bert09 (Meath) - Posts: 1807 - 24/11/2020 21:08:14 2314976 Link 0 |
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Will Cian Ward be any good of a manager? bert09 (Meath) - Posts: 1807 - 24/11/2020 21:09:15 2314978 Link 0 |
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Just on defending... We lacked discipline against Kildare and it cost us several easy frees. Bet any money management tried to correct this and ended up with players totally standing off. Several of our backs were not at the races at all against Kildare. Yet they started against Dublin.it was clear after 10 mins against the dubs these backs were still not up to it yet no changes made. Madness! bert09 (Meath) - Posts: 1807 - 24/11/2020 21:14:27 2314982 Link 1 |