An Mhí Vs Gallimh,___19:00, 9/7/2011___Pairc Tailteann, An Uaimh

[thejuice]

Here we go.

Wasn't satisfied with the last beating we gave them. 2001 still not wholly avenged.

Surely 4 qualifier wins = 1 All Ireland Loss, so a few more hidings to be handed out.

[seafoid]

Here we go.

Wasn't satisfied with the last beating we gave them. 2001 still not wholly avenged.

Surely 4 qualifier wins = 1 All Ireland Loss, so a few more hidings to be handed out.

Meath will win and then lose to Longford. "Schön verlieren" is what they call it in German. Losing beautifully.

Why would anyone count qualifier wins ?  Mick Lyons never would have.

[thejuice]

What, do we have to wait till ye get back to an All-Ireland?? sure that could take forever.

[GalwayBayBoy]

Meath should win this one handy although in fairness we usually beat them when it matters.

Hopefully we dispense with some of the dead wood and give some of the young lads a chance. They might get badly beaten but at least blood them with eyes on next year because we know what some of the current bunch can and can't do. And it's mainly can't do. And maybe O'Flaharta will try something novel like not playing half the team out of position and stop trying to batter square pegs into round holes.

[seafoid]

This is as good a chance as any to throw caution to the wind and try something different.
Meath are nothing special this year.   

[DB_An_Mhi]

Glad Seafoid we are going up in your estimation. From sh1te to nothing special!

[Jinxy]

This is as good a chance as any to throw caution to the wind and try something different.
Meath are nothing special this year.   

You insolent pup. 
You'll be chased back across the Shannon with your tail between your legs.

[ross matt]

So long as Galway havent completely thrown in the towel morale wise there is a good chance of them taking Meath in my opinion. They have to be better than they were yesterday. Meehan will have another 2 weeks under his belt recovery wise + possibly armstrong may be ready. Also I dont think Joyce can be said to be finished based on one match.

Meath have some great individual forwards but their teamwork and link play was very poor against a very poor Louth. Some of them greedily took the shot when they should have passed to a better positioned colleague. Whilst the goals that they scored against Louth were well taken I think they eased their way through in the lead up far more easily than they would have against Galway. The Meath full backline also looked suspect once or twice and PJ & co could expose them there.

Midfield is where Galway have to up their performance more than anywhere else. Shane O'Rourke won and broke great ball the last day plus took some fine long range scores.

Galway need to have their heads right instead of the despondent way they've approached the qualifiers since 01. I hope they do. Connacht abu.

[seafoid]

This is as good a chance as any to throw caution to the wind and try something different.
Meath are nothing special this year.   

You insolent pup. 
You'll be chased back across the Shannon with your tail between your legs.

Hey Jinxy. You can stay in hell 

[agorm]

Here we go.

Wasn't satisfied with the last beating we gave them. 2001 still not wholly avenged.

Surely 4 qualifier wins = 1 All Ireland Loss, so a few more hidings to be handed out.

Are you kidding? No amount of qualifier wins equals an All-Ireland loss/ win though in truth they cannot be compared.

I hope that banty finally is coming close to his best team. Hope Kevin Reilly is back. I also hope that we work the ball better in the forwards as I dont think any defence will be as porous as Louths were. We need to work the ball better in the forwards to put players in good positions for scoring points. On Saturday we either went for unrealistic scores from too far out or(happily successfully) went all the way in for goals. Those goals wont be as easy to get in future game(s).

I would hope that home advantage will swing it for us and that we could win by circa 4-6 points.

[myball22]

Unless there is the most almighty backlash, we will get our asses handed to us next week. And we don't do backlashes. We're like the hurlers, when our backs at to the wall, we keep them there and capitulate too easily. Who many games in recent years did we lose by 1 point? And the cancer has run so deep now that I would take a 1 point loss right now because I am genuinely afraid we will be humiliated the next day. An average Mayo team (or a Mayo team playing averagely) beat us by 6 points and it could have been 16 points!
London will be in the championship longer than us, we are amongst the also-rans at this stage.

What I would like to see next week is as follows:
Firstly some pride in the jersey.
We haven't played at an intensity necessary for championship wins since we played Meath in 2001. That day we hurried and harrassed Meath and didn't give them a break. Like the hurlers there is a look for excuses and no savage will to win with this current team. That would be a start.
After that an emphasis on youth.
We know that most of the current crop are not up to it, lets give youth its fling and see what happens. Some people might say that it might backfire and we could been overrun and out muscled but that's happening anyway with this current shower! Also there is nothing left to lose, nobody expects them to win so they might have a right cut at it and maybe at least at the end of the match there may be some light and the end of the tunnel!
Finally some common sense in terms of team selection.
Pick backs in the defence and forwards in the attack. It's not rocket science. Our defence is not good enough to mark man to man, 6 on 6 we should employ at least two forwards as auxiliary backs with a licence to attack. We need players with the work rate of Paul Galvin, Dooher and Cathal Cregg.
Surely someones like Boyle and Tomas Fahy should start the next day. Breath new blood and life into the team.
Maybe they'll come good like '98 and the good days will come back
Right now I'd settle for competitiveness and a bit of pride!

[muppet]

Unless there is the most almighty backlash, we will get our asses handed to us next week. And we don't do backlashes. We're like the hurlers, when our backs at to the wall, we keep them there and capitulate too easily. Who many games in recent years did we lose by 1 point? And the cancer has run so deep now that I would take a 1 point loss right now because I am genuinely afraid we will be humiliated the next day. An average Mayo team (or a Mayo team playing averagely) beat us by 6 points and it could have been 16 points!
London will be in the championship longer than us, we are amongst the also-rans at this stage.

What I would like to see next week is as follows:
Firstly some pride in the jersey.
We haven't played at an intensity necessary for championship wins since we played Meath in 2001. That day we hurried and harrassed Meath and didn't give them a break. Like the hurlers there is a look for excuses and no savage will to win with this current team. That would be a start.
After that an emphasis on youth.
We know that most of the current crop are not up to it, lets give youth its fling and see what happens. Some people might say that it might backfire and we could been overrun and out muscled but that's happening anyway with this current shower! Also there is nothing left to lose, nobody expects them to win so they might have a right cut at it and maybe at least at the end of the match there may be some light and the end of the tunnel!
Finally some common sense in terms of team selection.
Pick backs in the defence and forwards in the attack. It's not rocket science. Our defence is not good enough to mark man to man, 6 on 6 we should employ at least two forwards as auxiliary backs with a licence to attack. We need players with the work rate of Paul Galvin, Dooher and Cathal Cregg.
Surely someones like Boyle and Tomas Fahy should start the next day. Breath new blood and life into the team.
Maybe they'll come good like '98 and the good days will come back
Right now I'd settle for competitiveness and a bit of pride!

Surely a good start would be to put Hanley, Blake and Bradshaw in the positions where they made their name. There are at least three other decent backs there. With a decent keeper behind them, and a couple of dogs of war in the middle to win breaking ball off Bergin you still have Joyce and Bane (maybe Meehan) to get the scores. Awful simple stuff I know, but it has to be better than yesterday.

[Duine Eile]

Tomas Fahy left the panel a while back, hard to blame him when the likes of O'Donnell and Higgins are being started in the hald back line ahead of him, he has more ability than the 2 of them put together. Serious changes needed for this game, restore Hanley to no.3, Bradshaw to the half back line, maybe throw on Flynn and O Corraoin at midfield, yes they're inexperienced at this level but they couldn't be any worse than what we had yesterday, Bergin needs to be dropped at this stage, anytime he got the ball yesterday the entire Galway support held their breath waiting for him to get rid of it before he did something daft. I'd love for the lads to be hurt, humiliated, disappointed in themselves after yesterday's performance and go out and play like a team and show a bit of heart against Meath, sadly that's one of the biggest things missing from this current crop of players. I would start Micheal Boyle the next day for definite, as I said on the Mayo thread this lad isn't short on confidence and isn't afraid to take a score. Meehan isn't able for a full 70 yet but he'll definitely be needed, I presume Armstrong won't be ready for this game?

[myball22]

Surely Armstrong is another one of these players who hasn't done it and won't do it at this stage. We can't put this down to best we have at the moment, we have to build for the future starting now. I would try and start a good few u-21s, they don't have this fear of failure associated with the seniors and have a winning mentality. They were told they would be destroyed by Cork in the u-21 semi and went out and beat them. I would try Hanley at centre back. I thought Forde did reasonably well at full back the last day and thought himself and Duane came out with credit. Maybe moving Bergin to the half forward line might free him up a bit, he's no good as the main man at midfield, he might express himself at half forward.
And we have to play with a few extra backs, leaving Alan Burke alone on Cian Ward is a recipe for disaster. He might even beat his 4 goals at the weekend!

[GalwayBayBoy]

Unless there is the most almighty backlash, we will get our asses handed to us next week. And we don't do backlashes. We're like the hurlers, when our backs at to the wall, we keep them there and capitulate too easily. Who many games in recent years did we lose by 1 point? And the cancer has run so deep now that I would take a 1 point loss right now because I am genuinely afraid we will be humiliated the next day. An average Mayo team (or a Mayo team playing averagely) beat us by 6 points and it could have been 16 points!
London will be in the championship longer than us, we are amongst the also-rans at this stage.

What I would like to see next week is as follows:
Firstly some pride in the jersey.
We haven't played at an intensity necessary for championship wins since we played Meath in 2001. That day we hurried and harrassed Meath and didn't give them a break. Like the hurlers there is a look for excuses and no savage will to win with this current team. That would be a start.
After that an emphasis on youth.
We know that most of the current crop are not up to it, lets give youth its fling and see what happens. Some people might say that it might backfire and we could been overrun and out muscled but that's happening anyway with this current shower! Also there is nothing left to lose, nobody expects them to win so they might have a right cut at it and maybe at least at the end of the match there may be some light and the end of the tunnel!
Finally some common sense in terms of team selection.
Pick backs in the defence and forwards in the attack. It's not rocket science. Our defence is not good enough to mark man to man, 6 on 6 we should employ at least two forwards as auxiliary backs with a licence to attack. We need players with the work rate of Paul Galvin, Dooher and Cathal Cregg.
Surely someones like Boyle and Tomas Fahy should start the next day. Breath new blood and life into the team.
Maybe they'll come good like '98 and the good days will come back
Right now I'd settle for competitiveness and a bit of pride!

Surely a good start would be to put Hanley, Blake and Bradshaw in the positions where they made their name. There are at least three other decent backs there. With a decent keeper behind them, and a couple of dogs of war in the middle to win breaking ball off Bergin you still have Joyce and Bane (maybe Meehan) to get the scores. Awful simple stuff I know, but it has to be better than yesterday.

The problem with Hanley is that he's an out and out full-back. I don't think he can play anywhere else. He is a poor enough kicker of the ball and he looked like man who was searching for his car keys around the middle the last day. He has no instinct for playing in midfield. He is a decent full-back when all he has to do is attack and clear the ball. The thing is young Forde may already be as good a full-back as him if not better. Maybe you could put Hanley full-back and put Forde in the corner. Not ideal for Forde though. I have thought about Hanley at centre-back and while it may suit him a bit more than midfield I'd be worried that his dodgy kicking would be exposed there.

Bradshaw should either be wing-back or centre-back where his runs forward would have kept the likes of Moran or Dillon occupied going the other direction on Sunday. Instead Dillon was being marked by Greg Higgins who is no centre-back and doesn't have the pace to be chasing after nippy half-forwards. Dillon won a mountain of breaking ball the last day because of it. Blake I thought did alright after coming on but what on earth was he doing at centre-forward. He's not even the first cousin of a centre-forward. Conroy another who has no instinct for playing in the full-forward line. Apart from firing a loose ball into the net you can tell he doesn't really know what he should be doing up there. Joe Bergin being persisted with in midfield. Even his own club don't play Joe in midfield anymore unless it's an emergency. How's he making the Galway midfield? PJ at corner-forward? PJ hasn't played in the corner in years. He doesn't have the turn of foot anymore to be in the corner which is why he's played centrally for the past decade.

For Meath I would try

Faherty
Forde
Hanley
Duane
Sice
Blake
Bradshaw
Flynn
Ó'Curraoin
Bergin
Joyce
Boyle
Bane
Meehan
Cummins

Not mad about moving Forde but he has played some corner-back. Boyle and Cummins to add some much needed pace upfront. Meehan obviously might not be able for a full game but I'd rather start him and take him off rather than have to put him on when we're already 5 or 6 points down. I'd give Bergin a go at wing-forward. I actually think he's played most of his best matches for Galway from that position. Obviously a huge ask to start the two 19 years olds in midfield but they were well able for Aidan Walsh who is better than anyone Meath have in midfield and if they fail so what. It's not like the other options would do any better than them. At least these lads might have a future.