Thoughts on the draw? Feels like a pure 50 50 game to me. Think Meath will dominate midfield and overall have the better forwards. Ryan O'Donoghue, Kobe and Darragh Beirne will no doubt cause our struggling defence a lot of problems. Think Mayo have the better defenders, hoping the big pitch in Castlebar will suit meath and they will have had an extra day recovery on Mayo. Such a hard game to call, should be a cracker.

Sheridan2010louth (Meath) - Posts: 342 - 15/06/2026 12:18:07    2679837

Would have preferred it in Croke Park but it's about as good as we could have gotten. Mayo are a good team, but also vulnerable and we are absolutely capable of beating them. Think both teams will be relatively happy with the draw

Cabbagepatch1667 (Meath) - Posts: 166 - 15/06/2026 13:04:43    2679869

Probably not the worst draw we could have had. Need to get a fairer way of giving teams an opportunity of playing a home game. Meath on their 3rd away trip and will have covered just shy of 1400km following the boys in green. Glad to be able to do it but surely fairness has to come into the equation. Look at Monaghan, 3 home games, no travelling at all. I know it's the luck of the draw but some common sense has to prevail. Fuel prices are quite high at present. I think and I am open to contradiction but Meath are the only team who have not got a home draw in this series of games.

Diego (Meath) - Posts: 1212 - 15/06/2026 13:46:29    2679898

Glad to have avoided Donegal & Armagh at this stage. Not easy being on the road again but think we'll match up well against them. Would hope / expect that the Derry game will have brought us on.

gwanyagudthing (Meath) - Posts: 192 - 15/06/2026 13:46:44    2679899

Mayos defence as suspect as ours, we defo have the better midfield. They probably have the stars up front but they probably have that flakey Mayo DNA so happy to have ours

southmeathgael (Meath) - Posts: 1092 - 15/06/2026 14:02:44    2679911

LowerHogan (Meath) - Posts: 102 - 15/06/2026 14:15:08    2679916

NYRoyal (USA) - Posts: 158 - 15/06/2026 15:04:12    2679935

Royalio11 (Meath) - Posts: 847 - 15/06/2026 16:42:59    2679974

Three away games in a row is a complete failure of oversight. Nobody is earning home advantage anymore, neutral venues need to be seriously considered for the backdoor.

Personally, I'm gutted I can't make it on Saturday. I was hoping for a Sunday fixture, but you can't have it all. I've been lucky this year - the only game I couldn't travel to and wasn't televised either was cork in the league.

As for Mayo, they have the type of forwards who can cause problems for the way we defend. It'll be interesting to see the match-ups, but I'd be surprised if Brennan tinkers too much with a winning team. Smyth has certainly put his hand up, though I'd expect him to be used as an impact sub. This is the first div 1 side we will have faced this year.

The big positive is midfield. If they perform like they did on Saturday, we have a huge chance. They absolutely dominated kick-outs and won more than twice as many as the opposition.

We need more from Costello and Morris. Flynn, Menton and Keoghan stepped up brilliantly in Kinsella's absence and covered his usual scoring contribution, but we need another forward to chip in with 3-4 points. Conlon is flying, but you can't expect seven points every game.

I still have a quiet confidence someone is about to explode. O'Connor got into plenty of scoring positions but didn't finish, Frayne was quiet from play, and Morris feels like a coiled spring ready to go. One of them is due a big day.

Mayo have athletes to match us physically, so lads like Caufield(endurance) , Flynn (power), McBride (height) and Coffey(pace) may not enjoy the same edge they usually do.

I honestly am not sure about the result. While Derry had in the past been known for being tough to play against( it looks to be fully gone now) and this made me unsure about the game last week. Mayo have always played football, they are loose at times, they can score big, concede big, 2 point shooters and have big men. This gives me more us v cork vibes. We somewhat mirror each other.

If we were to add another layer of hard work to the team, I think you can outwork this mayo team. We can go toe to toe in a shoot out and maybe it's 50:50 but I think we have the capacity to be more prgamatic than them.

royalcounty1 (Meath) - Posts: 101 - 15/06/2026 19:38:40    2680031