Meath Forum

Meath V Fermanagh

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Replying To royaldunne:  "That's a fair assessment. But then 2 years in are we in a worse or better situation? Then before Colm came in. Look everyone here thinks I have something personal against Colm. Nothing could be further from the truth. I idolised him as a player. I just don't think he is the right man for the job at this time. I think after sean stepped down he should have been handed the job without any questions and I believe he would have made a huge success of it. But football has moved on dramatically since those times. And I honestly believe Colm hasn't, and his back room doesn't seem to have the necessary modern day approach that is needed. I honestly believe we are settling for average or below average results when the players are there to better if better coached and managed. That is my only concern. Is there anyone out there who could set this team up differently ? Surely Obric and Gillespie are front runners going forward. But what about Brennan? Maybe he is the man. I don't know. But something has to change. If we are to improve even slightly then I think we need someone in asap."
I think they are all conservatives at heart. They want Meath to play offensively and kick the ball, and I would imagine they might not have the same attention to detail as what other county teams have. However I have no evidence to back that up... just feels like a likely reality. That type of approach would come seriously unstuck against a rested and motivated Fermanagh for instance, who are a proponent of extremely defensive, meticulous football.

Youre right though in my opinion in that we have above average players who could acheive more with the right coaching. However I would question the overall ceiling of the players as a collective team, the attitude of all involved, and the fact that these kids are (I would imagine) all born from the mid/late 90s (senior players) to the early/mid 00s (younger)... they are a different animal to predecessors and have a totally different vision of Meath football in their minds. Thats why winning the Tailteann was so great RD, it was the first senior trophy many of these lads ever saw a Meath men's team win. Just think about that.

I think we had this discussion a few times now about the management and staff - I see all of your points but I have to say, any manager we could handpick would not acheive much more with this panel. They are a team that when they perform and click, can give anyone a match - but when they dont they are Division 3 standard. Many, many other counties are also in this position. On the balance of probabilities I believe they should stay in Division 2 but considering Meath football at present I honestly haven't a clue what will happen week to week.

Young_gael (Meath) - Posts: 596 - 28/01/2024 11:26:31    2522605

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Replying To royaldunne:  "One other thing. Their number 13. By far best player on show yesterday (and since keoghan was brilliant that's saying something). Why didn't we change things ? No man marking. Everyone could see he was destroying us yet no change , you can't know what's gonna happen before a game starts but when something is unfolding in real time in front of ur eyes and you do nothing about it. That's where the problems lay. I mean if we tried man marking and our lad got roasted well then fair enough but at least we tried."
yea I agree on that, thought they should have put Keoghan on him after half time

Harnan6 (Meath) - Posts: 35 - 28/01/2024 11:39:49    2522608

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Yes Colm has to be given the time he mentioned to show improvement.That time is not up yet. Negative comments offered are NOT the same as saying he should not continue to complete that time. I know this will not sit neatly with the well recognised poster who never wanted him and Colm was guilty till proven innocent. Advising players to ignore the managers advise says it all. Its amazing how that anti Colm agenda shows itself. Hoping for better from here when the video of the last match is played in order to structure a proper training session this week and going forward. Best of luck to all in remedial action required before we can think about improvement. NO excuses accepted !

nobull456 (Meath) - Posts: 1266 - 28/01/2024 12:43:21    2522625

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There is some awful biased negativity on here. I suppose that's what happens on an anonymous forum, people feel they can say things that they wouldn't say to a person's face.
Colm was asked about Sigerson yesterday and there are 15 Meath players involved in college football this week. Fermanagh have two involved.
That means those 15 won't be involved in training this week fully and won't get the opportunity to prepare for the Armagh game the way an older player would.
It's just an issue given the age profile of the squad and the rebuilding work that is taking place.
It's not an excuse, it's just a fact.
And yet we have people coming on here saying 'I don't want to hear any excuses about Sigerson' and complain that our preparations are not good enough.

Roger (Meath) - Posts: 478 - 28/01/2024 12:58:10    2522630

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Looked very lethargic. Some skill errors and poor decision making in the final third hurt us. Thought Brennan's kickouts struggled into the wind I'd still like to see Billy Hogan playing. Some head scratchers too with Frayne taken off and Moriarty getting very little time. A draw isn't the end of the world if we have a statement result away to Armagh but on the evidence of the last 2 years league form you'd have to say that's unlikely

LeitrimRoyal99 (Meath) - Posts: 1523 - 28/01/2024 13:25:12    2522631

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Regarding Brennan in Goals, I was all for him. I think he's a great solid keeper, in the traditional sense. However, the whole coming out the field as an attacking outlet doesn't suit him. He doesn't seem confident on the ball. Like Harry Hogan also. They get the possession and are ad to get rid of it immediately. They don't want to know. Billy Hogan, on the other hand, looks like he could be that attacking keeper we need. He plays outfield for the club and is confident in possession from what I've seen. We haven't adapted to this tactic yet.

Selwyn (Meath) - Posts: 383 - 28/01/2024 13:43:32    2522635

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Replying To Roger:  "There is some awful biased negativity on here. I suppose that's what happens on an anonymous forum, people feel they can say things that they wouldn't say to a person's face.
Colm was asked about Sigerson yesterday and there are 15 Meath players involved in college football this week. Fermanagh have two involved.
That means those 15 won't be involved in training this week fully and won't get the opportunity to prepare for the Armagh game the way an older player would.
It's just an issue given the age profile of the squad and the rebuilding work that is taking place.
It's not an excuse, it's just a fact.
And yet we have people coming on here saying 'I don't want to hear any excuses about Sigerson' and complain that our preparations are not good enough."
The only Meath players that played Sigerson during the week were Shane Walsh, Matt Costello, Eoghan Frayne, Ciaran Caulfield and Ruairi Kinsella. 3 starters and 2 subs. For years we had players of a similar age to the lads now who couldn't make Sigerson teams, it's a great thing that we have players good enough to make it not a hinderance. It's game 1 of the league so I won't overreact but I'd prefer my manager to not give a built in excuse. Regardless of lads playing Sigerson we should be beating Fermanagh at home

LeitrimRoyal99 (Meath) - Posts: 1523 - 28/01/2024 14:06:13    2522640

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Replying To Roger:  "There is some awful biased negativity on here. I suppose that's what happens on an anonymous forum, people feel they can say things that they wouldn't say to a person's face.
Colm was asked about Sigerson yesterday and there are 15 Meath players involved in college football this week. Fermanagh have two involved.
That means those 15 won't be involved in training this week fully and won't get the opportunity to prepare for the Armagh game the way an older player would.
It's just an issue given the age profile of the squad and the rebuilding work that is taking place.
It's not an excuse, it's just a fact.
And yet we have people coming on here saying 'I don't want to hear any excuses about Sigerson' and complain that our preparations are not good enough."
There is too many games at this time of year on heavy pitches. Sigerson was a knockout competition but they changed the format a few years ago and a backdoor format. Then some of those players involved with Senior and County U20 panels.

FoolsGold (Cavan) - Posts: 2825 - 28/01/2024 14:31:07    2522652

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Colm o rourke was a brilliant footballer and if he had of started against down in 1990 ye would have won another all ireland but he is no manager and he is 25 years behind in tactics. Ye were very lucky to avoid division 3 last year after a very poor campaign and very lucky to beat a soft belly down team in the taillteann cup final ye were turned over 12 times in the first half of that match and kicked numerous wides and balls into their goal keepers hands. Any decent team would have beaten ye. Unfortunetly as i have always had a soft spot for meath especially against the dubs he is going to bring ye to division 3 this year.

breffnibluewhite (Cavan) - Posts: 479 - 28/01/2024 14:33:09    2522655

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Replying To breffnibluewhite:  "Colm o rourke was a brilliant footballer and if he had of started against down in 1990 ye would have won another all ireland but he is no manager and he is 25 years behind in tactics. Ye were very lucky to avoid division 3 last year after a very poor campaign and very lucky to beat a soft belly down team in the taillteann cup final ye were turned over 12 times in the first half of that match and kicked numerous wides and balls into their goal keepers hands. Any decent team would have beaten ye. Unfortunetly as i have always had a soft spot for meath especially against the dubs he is going to bring ye to division 3 this year."
Could be correct on your ultimate point about a relegation for Meath, but some of your points are overblown. COR is a conservative manager, goes without saying, but he isnt 25 years out of touch.

That same soft-belly Down team, who did they beat in the Tailteann cup quarter final last year? does that make Cavan not a "decent" team. Or is it all about Cavan looking better after a duo of weekend fixtures than Meath all that matters in this instance?

Methinks youre here after Cavan beating Kildare for a gloat and a bit of a chinwag. Youll find aside from the Dubs and perhaps 3/4 others, we are all disadvantaged and running up the same hill and come August/ September itll be the same old teams chasing the trophy.

Young_gael (Meath) - Posts: 596 - 28/01/2024 16:13:01    2522697

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Replying To breffnibluewhite:  "Colm o rourke was a brilliant footballer and if he had of started against down in 1990 ye would have won another all ireland but he is no manager and he is 25 years behind in tactics. Ye were very lucky to avoid division 3 last year after a very poor campaign and very lucky to beat a soft belly down team in the taillteann cup final ye were turned over 12 times in the first half of that match and kicked numerous wides and balls into their goal keepers hands. Any decent team would have beaten ye. Unfortunetly as i have always had a soft spot for meath especially against the dubs he is going to bring ye to division 3 this year."
It was 1991 against Down as a matter of fact while Colm captained Meath to League and Leinster success in 1990 and subsequently lost to Cork in the All Ireland later that year.
Anyway it is not long ago that Colm O Rourke won two senior championships with Simonstown (no mean feat) and also managed successful schools teams up to very recently also. Things did pick up last year where Meath won the Tailteann cup, a competition that Cavan also competed in and have to fight their way to ensure they don't compete in it this year too. Meath don't need to worry about that. have no doubt he knows the game but there were mistakes made on sideline and field and alot of coaching required.
Maybe you are on a bit of a high having beat a poor Kildare team in a neutral venue but it is only January with lots to play for. Meath are by no means in a great place but its early days and write off nobody yet!

winatallcost (Meath) - Posts: 587 - 28/01/2024 16:16:09    2522699

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Replying To LeitrimRoyal99:  "The only Meath players that played Sigerson during the week were Shane Walsh, Matt Costello, Eoghan Frayne, Ciaran Caulfield and Ruairi Kinsella. 3 starters and 2 subs. For years we had players of a similar age to the lads now who couldn't make Sigerson teams, it's a great thing that we have players good enough to make it not a hinderance. It's game 1 of the league so I won't overreact but I'd prefer my manager to not give a built in excuse. Regardless of lads playing Sigerson we should be beating Fermanagh at home"
Again put so much more eloquently than me. 100% agree

royaldunne (Meath) - Posts: 19449 - 28/01/2024 16:33:45    2522710

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Replying To LeitrimRoyal99:  "The only Meath players that played Sigerson during the week were Shane Walsh, Matt Costello, Eoghan Frayne, Ciaran Caulfield and Ruairi Kinsella. 3 starters and 2 subs. For years we had players of a similar age to the lads now who couldn't make Sigerson teams, it's a great thing that we have players good enough to make it not a hinderance. It's game 1 of the league so I won't overreact but I'd prefer my manager to not give a built in excuse. Regardless of lads playing Sigerson we should be beating Fermanagh at home"
Agree, its great in one way we have so many young Meath lads playing so well for their colleges, however, I will be glad when its over and management have full access to players. We have back to back home games in Feb. after the break which may make or break our league. I thought we would scrape a win on Saturday but only because we were at home, little or no difference between us otherwise,league is going to be a real scrap, especially around who drops down. Some of our more experienced players yesterday showed little form or leadership and that cannot be blamed on Sigerson. Early days and on a positive note we fought back twice to get a hard won point.

seadog54 (Meath) - Posts: 2195 - 28/01/2024 16:54:35    2522729

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Replying To seadog54:  "Agree, its great in one way we have so many young Meath lads playing so well for their colleges, however, I will be glad when its over and management have full access to players. We have back to back home games in Feb. after the break which may make or break our league. I thought we would scrape a win on Saturday but only because we were at home, little or no difference between us otherwise,league is going to be a real scrap, especially around who drops down. Some of our more experienced players yesterday showed little form or leadership and that cannot be blamed on Sigerson. Early days and on a positive note we fought back twice to get a hard won point."
On to the next excuse from the management once the Sigerson is over......

Leitrimroyal explained perfectly there was only a few lads involved in the Sigerson from the match day squad. It simply isn't a valid excuse and COR needs to change the record .

Blackspot09 (Meath) - Posts: 1003 - 28/01/2024 17:48:56    2522757

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Replying To royaldunne:  "Well that was terrible. Over 20 years of blanket defense been used and every Meath team still look like deer caught in headlights as If it's the first time they've ever seen it. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail. And let's be honest they ain't even that good at it.
Point 2, if I hear sigerson excuse after excuse again Jesus Christ every team is the same, you don't hear any other manager or supporters banging on about it. Look at Derry they played the Glen lads against Kerry less than a week after winning club all ire and celebrating for at least a few days.
We were too slow to make changes. Flynn wasn't having a good game and needed to be taken off lot sooner, same for hickey and O'Connor, in first half we gave away soft frees by lazy tackling that a better team with the wind would have put over,
It's funny that those who say this is Colm's team etc are very quite on the same errors that plagued mcentees team, passing to opposing players, running into blind alleyways, giving up possession cheaply, not looking up when having the ball. I'll pick out one example , we turned over the ball I think it was Costello (open to correction) their GK out and I believe Lynch with him, a good punt pass and we had a goal. Instead wait too long for the pass and they get back.
There is many other examples I could use as in the 3 to one incident towards the end.
Eivers (I'm not looking up how to spell his name) was let go from Meath set up he walked out of navan straight to Donegal I was told yesterday, if that is true then why did that happen? Garrigan similar, we were promised a top class coach by Colm and by everyone on cb ran with same line.
Why was frayne taken off when game in melting pot ? The only forward who had shown ability to score , yes he should have passed to player in better position that would have probably ended in a goal, but that's something you address in post match not whip him off.
The backs, donal keoghan is a phenomenon the shift he put in was spectacular. But a one man defence isn't going to work. While we have solid defenders sitting at home twiddling their thumbs.
It is not too late to bring in someone to add to sideline, Colm can still give out about sigerson and call for dubs to be split in two etc he can still be the face of the sideline while we have someone working with the team to improve them , we can't let this generation of players (best in number of years) fail to at least make the top 8 in country.
Colm stated all through last years league that next year we would see huge improvements in league. Now it's only 1 game, but I haven't seen anything different than I have for past 10 years (gk maybe but that was sorted as cor came in)
We move on to Armagh , we need to lay down a marker louth didn't shirk neither should we.
As always. Hon the royal"
I don't often agree with you but I have to agree with most of your points after yesterday.
I was expecting a lot more yesterday but I do agree with ORourke as regards the Sigerson but that is what it is until its changed .
I dud think we the sideline were slow to make changes and when they did they panicked and made a number of changes almost together that disrupted any momentum we had .
The team panicked yesterday the goal before halftone was a disaster and I called it then that we would rue that goal . That goal was identical to the Louth goal last year have we not learned that if we commit players forward you can't give the ball away so easy if we were playing a top team years we would have been hammered with the amount of balls we gave away and that's not a managers fault.
Been down our fullback center back and midfield didn't help yesterday but we were very nieve at times I don't know how many times we got blocked down.
I believe we have a serious panel of players and ORourke deserves great credit for this I'm happy to see most of the old guard gone but we do need a top class coach in the Meath set up now to get the best out of this young meath team .
Everything about what's wrong in the game was so evident yesterday its actually very hard to watch a game of gaa .
At one stage yesterday it looked like a game of rugby players huddled in a scrum over in the corner and the rest including the goalie lined up on the 45 its brutal to watch .
If they don't do something fast with the rules nobody will want to go to a game and less will want to play it .

mmc (Meath) - Posts: 280 - 28/01/2024 17:53:22    2522761

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Replying To Blackspot09:  "On to the next excuse from the management once the Sigerson is over......

Leitrimroyal explained perfectly there was only a few lads involved in the Sigerson from the match day squad. It simply isn't a valid excuse and COR needs to change the record ."
At this stage I am expecting debuts to be rehashed soon enough. It worked as a smokescreen last year.

royaldunne (Meath) - Posts: 19449 - 28/01/2024 18:35:52    2522777

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Replying To Blackspot09:  "On to the next excuse from the management once the Sigerson is over......

Leitrimroyal explained perfectly there was only a few lads involved in the Sigerson from the match day squad. It simply isn't a valid excuse and COR needs to change the record ."
Easy for you to call them excuses. The reality is by next Saturday a lot of our lads will have played 7 games in 20 days.. its ridiculous and there is no way this should be happening with that amount of months in the calendar year where there are no games at all. O'Rourke is dead right to highlight it.

redser123 (Meath) - Posts: 404 - 28/01/2024 18:37:59    2522780

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Replying To Young_gael:  "Could be correct on your ultimate point about a relegation for Meath, but some of your points are overblown. COR is a conservative manager, goes without saying, but he isnt 25 years out of touch.

That same soft-belly Down team, who did they beat in the Tailteann cup quarter final last year? does that make Cavan not a "decent" team. Or is it all about Cavan looking better after a duo of weekend fixtures than Meath all that matters in this instance?

Methinks youre here after Cavan beating Kildare for a gloat and a bit of a chinwag. Youll find aside from the Dubs and perhaps 3/4 others, we are all disadvantaged and running up the same hill and come August/ September itll be the same old teams chasing the trophy."
No gloating here i was suprised by cavans victory yesterday and delighted by how well they played but there was always a chance that Kildare would take us for granted and playing the game in carlow also helped. I know where we are and will be happy if we survive in division 2 this season. Last year for what ever reason in all the big games under mickey graham we failed to perform especially against armagh who are an improving team but more so against Down who i have always considered a very flakey and soft team. They proved this against meath in the final where meath could not have played any worse and still won. I unlike many cavan supporters all ways like to see meath and monaghan doing well over the years but i cant see ye going anywhere with o rourke.

breffnibluewhite (Cavan) - Posts: 479 - 28/01/2024 18:52:30    2522788

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Replying To redser123:  "Easy for you to call them excuses. The reality is by next Saturday a lot of our lads will have played 7 games in 20 days.. its ridiculous and there is no way this should be happening with that amount of months in the calendar year where there are no games at all. O'Rourke is dead right to highlight it."
Well then bring a motion to congress. He and we knew this last year. And we knew it this year. Colm needs to Stop moaning about this. Everyone is in the same situation. Monaghan I believe have as many young lads as us. Didn't seem to do them much harm against a very strong Dublin

royaldunne (Meath) - Posts: 19449 - 28/01/2024 18:57:23    2522792

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Replying To redser123:  "Easy for you to call them excuses. The reality is by next Saturday a lot of our lads will have played 7 games in 20 days.. its ridiculous and there is no way this should be happening with that amount of months in the calendar year where there are no games at all. O'Rourke is dead right to highlight it."
Yes. By all means highlight it. Then park it and get on with the job in hand. Like pretty much every other manager of which there are plenty who in a similar boat are doing.

Don't go on... and on... and on... and then on about it.

Blackspot09 (Meath) - Posts: 1003 - 28/01/2024 19:04:08    2522799

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