Replying To Tobefair80: "At the game over the weekend and London were much the better team and will be one of the favorites to win it out now because there isn't much quality in this years championship. Meath are in a bad place and i don't see things changing any time soon unfortunately. One glaring issue for me and a big talking point among the people around me was the number of players playing intermediate club hurling that played against London, and in particular the whole fullback line. Meath senior hurling championship is not at its strongest at the minute but intermediate level is terrible and to expect to get away with 5 players from that grade on the team that have never played senior club hurling is pure daft. When i look at some of the names on the bench, Murtagh, Healy, D Kelly, J Kelly, Quigley, Murray, Fitzgerald (some of whom didn't even see any game time) all with multiple senior championship medals and all top players i wonder where management came up with their team selection. I get that you need to look and the lower grades and you will always find 1-2 good hurlers but not 5 that are better than the players in the grade above and you certainly don't have a full intermediate fullback line who in many cases are marking forwards from club second teams that cant make their first team.
Any way only Johnny Greville and his selectors can answer that one but hopefully better days to come and we can get to the latter stages of the competition and you never know then."
Looking at it from afar slightly the last year or two I can never get my head around that. If Meath was a strong hurling county you could understand it somewhat having so many intermediate players involved, but as mentioned the Intermediate standard is not great. Yes you might find 2 or 3 lads there but the Meath squad currently should be backboned by players from Trim, Ratoath, Kldalkey, Kiltale and Kilmessan, the other Senior teams are way off the standard of those 5 never mind Intermediate!!! Don't forget in 2023 Kildalkey's 2nd team won the Intermediate!! And even if you look beyond that Navan have played in the last two finals, won 1 of them and they didn't have anyone on the 26 yesterday. Injuries and various reasons mean they don't have all of the top lads available that they could have, so it's far from easy, but the balance of that panel seems to be all wrong and has been for the last couple of years. I think its 15 of the 26 named yesterday are from those top 5 clubs, that's 11 who aren't. Thats a large enough number considering the gulf in Standard between the top 5 and everyone else, be it Senior or Intermediate
Yeah all very strange and it is no reflection on the players themselves, they are doing their best and all good lads I'm sure but i just don't think management are doing them or the team any favors by throwing so many of them into county hurling together. Maybe management will tell you that they are not getting the commitment from other more experienced players which has also been an issue down through the years, that's a hard one to resolve because we all know that there are better hurlers in the county that are not playing but some of the guys on the bench last weekend simply have to get game time. Full back line is a massive problem and has been for a while now, you need steady trusted players in there but also specialized players to that area, none of the lads that played there last weekend are 2-3-4 for their clubs.
Interesting to see the approach for the next round, will they stick with what played last weekend or revert to some of the squad players like M Healy, Murtagh and Murray. My guess is that the 4/5 guys that came on will be next in line to play if changes are made although surly James Murry needs to start regardless of weather he has just joined the panel or not.
Replying To hurlingcowboy101: "I guess you could argue that Greville's links to Kildalkey give him both inside and outside status. The coach is from Wicklow with some limited experience with Dublin clubs. Greville must lean on his selectors for guidance but if they are pushing players from their own lower grade clubs, then it's not going to end well. Would he not be better served with a representative from Ratoath, Kiltale, Kilmessan to help his rep from Kildalkey?"
Greville's link to Kildalkey must have finished in 2017 or 18 because Pat O'Halloran was back in charge in 2019 when Kildalkey won the SHC. A lot of things change in 7 years. Presently there must be a lot of inter county material not making themselves available. London May be better than many expected but they only recently failed to win the Div 3 League.
Replying To MillerX: "Greville's link to Kildalkey must have finished in 2017 or 18 because Pat O'Halloran was back in charge in 2019 when Kildalkey won the SHC. A lot of things change in 7 years. Presently there must be a lot of inter county material not making themselves available. London May be better than many expected but they only recently failed to win the Div 3 League."
you would think that with so many lower grade representatives, there must be higher grade players making themselves unavailable. Off the Ratoath winning champo team, there must be players good enough but not being chosen / commiting for whatever reasons. Same with Trim. Others in Clanna Gael and Na Fianna come to mind. Few from Kilmessan not in the 26 the last day either. Kiltale had some very exciting younger lads over the last few years but no sign of them. I heard there is a 'development squad' for the next 15-20 players, but they way things look from the outside, that cannot be of any standard, and (maybe harshly) just an excuse to give lads a meath t-shirt or training top.