Leinster Senior Football Championship 2019

[High Fielder]

If you read what I said, you'll see that I said it's nobody's fault. I don't blame him at all. It's just a fact of life.

[Chrimtain]

We now play one of these 8.
Leitrim, Down, Derry, Antrim, Longford, Westmeath, Offaly, Monaghan.

I hope we can put this behind us and go on and give the qualifiers a good rattle.

[SpeculativeEffort]

Today is a taste of the next 3-4 years as Timmons, Begley, Johno, Lillis, Munnelly, Quigley, Donie and others inevitably step away. They are the remnants of the last really competitive team we've had. They have given it their all but next few years will be tough.

[High Fielder]

I think the key to what happens after this is Sugrue. There are good young players in the county, and the sooner he has contact with them the better. I don't see it as an end of an era, because we've known many days like this recently. Meath deserved to win today because they were sharper, but they weren't 11 points better than us and I don't think I'm being delusional by saying that. We have serious structural flaws under pressure but so do Meath, and there's no denying we opened them up. They would be foolish to walk away from this thinking they have it sussed, because we actually outplayed them for long periods. But importantly, they had a method and a steeliness that we lack. All is not lost by a long chalk, and we should try and look at the positives. Young Murphy at last looked like he belonged out there and that's what it's all about. There was plenty to take away from today

[Chrimtain]

Today is a taste of the next 3-4 years as Timmons, Begley, Johno, Lillis, Munnelly, Quigley, Donie and others inevitably step away. They are the remnants of the last really competitive team we've had. They have given it their all but next few years will be tough.

I think that one of the good things that Sugrue has done is to slowly introduce a number of young players and I'm not sure that the loss of the these players will make us that much weaker. Neither Munnelly nor Quigley are starters any more. Moreover, I believe that because of the way they look after themselves, there could be two to three years left in the likes of O'Loughlin, Begley and Lillis. Certainly Timmons will be a loss, but if I was Sugrue I would be attempting to find a new fullback in what ever number of qualifier games we get this year.

[The Boy Wonder]

I was puzzled when Evan O'Carroll was taken off - was he injured ?
We were very shot-shy, especially in the first 15 minutes when we practically owned the ball.
I reckon we at least broke even and probably better than that in the possession stakes overall.
However the scoreboard is what matters and Meath gave us a lesson in finishing.

[Tony]

Happy enough with the performance today overall. I know that might sound strange after an 11 point loss. But there were a lot of positives and there's no way we were 11 points the worse team. We dominated many periods of the game, and also dominated possession for large spells. In my opinion, we were the better team in certain areas. We just didn't dominate in the scoring department. We're badly needing one or two more consistent scorers up front. Where are our scores coming from? The opportunities are there but we need conversion - for me, the forward line needs far more.

I thought Evan was hard done by to be substituted today. He was causing trouble for Meath but missed some scorable chances. I thought one of the other forwards should have made way. Donie, Evan and Murphy need to start the next day. For me, the next best in the forward line is Cahilane and maybe Scully and Danny O'Reilly up there, too. Our attack was pretty toothless today, and it cost us the match. Not for lack of trying of course, everybody tried their heart out. It's just an ability thing. I thought otherwise, Brody, Booth, Attride, JOL, and Murphy did well. We badly missed Begley in my opinion. All of these things matter a lot and can be the winning and losing of a match. I don't think this year is over. I see us rebounding from this, learning and maybe getting another couple matches out of it. We made Meath (a division 1 side now) look very ordinary for large periods of the game. Just up top were missing that cutting edge for me; we must start our best scorers the next day and keep them on. A learning experience and a lot of homework to do, but progress has been made and all is not lost.

[recyclebin]

I think we need Evan and Donie on the pitch at the same time. None of our other forwards seem to have the same level of confidence to shoot when the score is on. We also need to look at ways of breaking down a crowded defence. Too many times lads turned around and passed it back. They need to have confidence to break a tackle or two or have runners to open up the defence. We are far too open in defence and a bit naive for two of the goals. The 11 point win wasn't fair on Laois. If we had of taken a couple of goals chances we could have beaten them. Meath are a division 1 team now and I don't think we are a million miles off them. Tactics are our weakest point.

[town1980]

I do think tactics are a major issue in our play we are so naive in this aspect which is the most important part like I said I think John needs better people around him Chris Conway for me would be great ,,I don't think his selectors offer him the info he needs because he has the respect of all the county he needs a strong num 2

[Giovanni]

What tactics are you talking about?

[on the hop]

a few points for debate

1. once again we failed to get above 13 scores, a consistent problem probably not helped by the lack of mobility in midfield and support play from the half forward line. failure once again to score goals when the chances presented themselves.
2. not giving evan a bit longer, meath persisted with newman who was having a similar day. donie made a big difference but should have been in full forward especially near the end, pointless having him back in his own half at times and no one ahead of him to pass to.  it was really evan or paul Kingston to go as none of the half forward were going to taken off with the game plan we use. for me boyle should have went and given evan a bit longer. Also Quigley should have been on earlier as lillis was out on his feet.
3. lack of a link man in the half forward line. we packed it with three workers and some of the passing was shocking, that was when we even attempted to pass. We had oceans of ball but played it in front of meath which suited them. we seldom seemed to want to run at them or take them on or even stretch them. we are very conservative in our approach to games. Sullivan for them played very well in that role. scully in the second game was on a different level as a link man.
4. round pegs in square holes especially in the case of both corner backs. in a perfect world both would be attacking wing backs. while the options aren't great especially with the injury to Timmons and Begley both had a difficult day, Attride in particular made numerous mistakes which is unusual for him. I couldn't understand with meath operating a sweeper that we could have tried to protect him.
5. booth, o Flynn, jol and donie tried hard. murphy did well on limited ball but the goal miss was a game changer
6. Allowing Keoghan to get on so much ball, especially from the kickouts similarly not tracking menton. it wasn't if these things hadn't been sign posted in previous meath matches.

meath were just a bit slicker today at times, especially when getting scores. it was a real struggle for us, 11 scores is a dreadful return and I can't understand how people feel it was a good performance on that return. we have loads of honest effort but the quality is not improving.  they probably are not that much better than us both but when they got a chance at goals they exploited them, conceding three goals in a championship game is always a bad day for a defence . we play a very rigid type game which is not really effective when we have to chase a game, we don't appear to have a plan b. the qualifiers are going to be tough for us as there are no easy matches, hopefully we might get a home draw.

[Junior Ex Laoistalk]

Derry away in the next round, far from easy...

[Chrimtain]

Derry away in the next round, far from easy...

It couldn't be much worse! After losing badly yesterday, to have to travel to Derry is the last thing we wanted.

[High Fielder]

Good post as usual OTH. Your matchplay analysis is always spot on. For me it was a good performance because I thought we went toe to toe at times with a now Division 1 team. They showed why they are in Division 1 but I didn't feel overawed by them. They were smarter and ultimately felt they were a better team than us, and they were in fairness.

We have to find a way past the square pegs in round holes. Dillon and Attride are great committed players and would play anywhere we want them to. But we're making a huge sacrifice by stemming their natural attacking ability and putting them at corner back. They are probably the two best wing backs we have. Unfortunately, needs must. In my opinion, the two most likely candidates are Healy and Saunders. Both unavailable. After that, you tell me. Do you do what McNulty tried to do with Meaney and develop players in the hope that they're a good fit? I'm not sure we have the sort of specialist coaching needed for that, so maybe putting good players into vacant positions is the best way. I'm of the opinion that this doesn't always work either, even though we know of many examples where it has. I guess you'll get away with it up to a point, and the better player will find you out.

Then we have a serious issue with pace. We are slow, not just in our leg speed, but also in our thought processes. We have tried to balance that by being better at holding on to the football, but Meath were happy to wait. They knew they could do damage on the break and particularly by running directly at us. I'm not sure yet whether the sixes and sevens is caused by the slowness of our movement or inferior ability of certain players. We have to accept that too. There are some lads on the field who don't have the ability for this level. Of everything that disappointed me about yesterday, I can't for the life of me understand how Scully didn't start. I don't know why so maybe that's short sighted of me, but he's easily been our find of the season. I really hope next year that Carroll and himself are our wing forwards. Whilst saying that, I don't want to be critical of anyone because Sugrue had his plan and he obviously felt the players he picked could implement it. Benny Carroll is a massive loss to us.

So all things considered, I was happy with what we did yesterday. The better team won and a lot would have to change to reverse that. We did extremely well to beat Westmeath who clearly are a team of similar ability to ourselves with very similar shortcomings. You can see why McNukty came in and decided the best approach was safety first, but that just papered over the cracks. Sugrue is more adventurous and whilst that means you'll get the odd beating, you still feel like you're learning. The future doesn't phase me, because we live in an age where competitiveness for a team like us is hard to define. For me, I just hope that Sugrue can see something that he likes, because he knows more than all of us put together. I think we have some good footballers in the county. I just hope we can get them on the same pitch together and functioning in a way that gives us a chance. Despite all the good work done, there's still a lot more to do

[Countyminor]

Our approach play was slow and laboured. Add to the mix our score taking is consistently absolutely dreadful. Countless wides and missed goal chances that just have to be taken. This is a constant theme in any match we play now. You can't score 0:11 and expect to win.