New Meath Manager

[Syferus]

Meath's tactics against us this year were the demonic crossbreed of Donegal's numbers back and Kildare's wide machines of a few years back. I wouldn't have thought of O'Dowd as having a football philosophy. Unless that philosophy was to whine about refs and complain about non-existent officiating conspiracies.

I don't buy that Meath could do no better for a manager, but like ourselves your reputation to outsiders is as a fickle county and will make some quailified people shy away from the job.

Not at all. I d love the Mead job but not senile enough to go near Ros. Mead assimilated our (I mean Mayo now) more creative and artistic western genes, as well as the native durability and rawness of our peasant, and we made them a proper football county until the celtic tiger made them soft. Generations of hardship conditioning and the savy/creativity that results undone in the blink of an eye.

I look forward to James Horan leading Meath to AI glory so.

[moysider]

Meath's tactics against us this year were the demonic crossbreed of Donegal's numbers back and Kildare's wide machines of a few years back. I wouldn't have thought of O'Dowd as having a football philosophy. Unless that philosophy was to whine about refs and complain about non-existent officiating conspiracies.

I don't buy that Meath could do no better for a manager, but like ourselves your reputation to outsiders is as a fickle county and will make some quailified people shy away from the job.

Not at all. I d love the Mead job but not senile enough to go near Ros. Mead assimilated our (I mean Mayo now) more creative and artistic western genes, as well as the native durability and rawness of our peasant, and we made them a proper football county until the celtic tiger made them soft. Generations of hardship conditioning and the savy/creativity that results undone in the blink of an eye.

I look forward to James Horan leading Meath to AI glory so.

Not practical for James to combine his work and the travel involved. Might have to look to Dublin. Fellas like Jack Sheedy who gets a gig with the lesser Leinster counties. Strange that Mead have looked to their northern province of Monaghan for Banty to assault our ears and f**k them up, while ignoring the candidates within The Pale proper?

[Jinxy]

Meath's tactics against us this year were the demonic crossbreed of Donegal's numbers back and Kildare's wide machines of a few years back. I wouldn't have thought of O'Dowd as having a football philosophy. Unless that philosophy was to whine about refs and complain about non-existent officiating conspiracies.

I don't buy that Meath could do no better for a manager, but like ourselves your reputation to outsiders is as a fickle county and will make some quailified people shy away from the job.

Not at all. I d love the Mead job but not senile enough to go near Ros. Mead assimilated our (I mean Mayo now) more creative and artistic western genes, as well as the native durability and rawness of our peasant, and we made them a proper football county until the celtic tiger made them soft. Generations of hardship conditioning and the savy/creativity that results undone in the blink of an eye.

I look forward to James Horan leading Meath to AI glory so.

Lookit, if James wants to throw his baseball cap into the ring, we'll hear him out.
Does he know how to use powerpoint?

[thejuice]

I hear that for an extra €100,000 of sponsorship money who ever gets the job has to be dressed as Mr Tayto for all county matches and public appearances.

[moysider]

Sounds reasonable.

[DuffleKing]

I hear that for an extra €100,000 of sponsorship money who ever gets the job has to be dressed as Mr Tayto for all county matches and public appearances.

Fear not, you're perfect solution is riding in on his horse...

http://www.hoganstand.com/ArticleForm.aspx?ID=241756

[Ard-Rí]

The North Meath clubs seem set to vote against Mick O'Dowd from what I hear. A perceived lack of balance in the geographical and divisional spread of players on the panel partly responsible. There seems to be general feeling that he should step down amongst the supporters as well. Support for him has rallied somewhat since the Westmeath game, but personally I would be surprised if he survives. I don't even know which outcome is preferable though.  It might have helped him if Westmeath could have put up a decent show in the rest of the championship, but it wasn't to be.

[Rossfan]

Tom Tommy is the man for ye 

[moysider]

The North Meath clubs seem set to vote against Mick O'Dowd from what I hear. A perceived lack of balance in the geographical and divisional spread of players on the panel partly responsible. There seems to be general feeling that he should step down amongst the supporters as well. Support for him has rallied somewhat since the Westmeath game, but personally I would be surprised if he survives. I don't even know which outcome is preferable though.  It might have helped him if Westmeath could have put up a decent show in the rest of the championship, but it wasn't to be.

Wha? Are you serious?
Not that I lie awake at night worrying about the state of football in your county but that is crazy.
The crazy thing though is 'the perceived lack of balance'. Who is perceiving what and why should there be a balance?

[Syferus]

The North Meath clubs seem set to vote against Mick O'Dowd from what I hear. A perceived lack of balance in the geographical and divisional spread of players on the panel partly responsible. There seems to be general feeling that he should step down amongst the supporters as well. Support for him has rallied somewhat since the Westmeath game, but personally I would be surprised if he survives. I don't even know which outcome is preferable though.  It might have helped him if Westmeath could have put up a decent show in the rest of the championship, but it wasn't to be.

Wha? Are you serious?
Not that I lie awake at night worrying about the state of football in your county but that is crazy.
The crazy thing though is 'the perceived lack of balance'. Who is perceiving what and why should there be a balance?

Isn't it a bit like what you were talking about re: underage footballers in Mayo getting on county panels?

[Ard-Rí]

The North Meath clubs seem set to vote against Mick O'Dowd from what I hear. A perceived lack of balance in the geographical and divisional spread of players on the panel partly responsible. There seems to be general feeling that he should step down amongst the supporters as well. Support for him has rallied somewhat since the Westmeath game, but personally I would be surprised if he survives. I don't even know which outcome is preferable though.  It might have helped him if Westmeath could have put up a decent show in the rest of the championship, but it wasn't to be.

Wha? Are you serious?
Not that I lie awake at night worrying about the state of football in your county but that is crazy.
The crazy thing though is 'the perceived lack of balance'. Who is perceiving what and why should there be a balance?

I'm not actually a supporter of the view, for the record, except in the very limited respect that I do think there are too many Ratoath players on the panel.

However, that being said, the case is somewhat understandable. For a start, the most obvious point is that Ratoath (a South Meath Intermediate club) have five representatives (Conor McGill, E Wallace, J Wallace, Brian McMahon & Brian Power). Without debating the individual merits of each, it's fairly obvious that some have been advanced before their time. I don't think that's really up for debate. Is there another comparable situation in any other county that you know of? Possibly so, and if there is I would like to know about it. In our experience however, the dominance of Ratoath players in the selection has been something of an anomaly.

Added to the Ratoath issue,  the vast majority of the panel are from South Meath (the line drawn generally is North or South of Navan, with Navan considered South). Of the defenders that started against Wicklow, five out of the six are from south of that line. Paddy O'Rourke from Skryne similarly, and of course Harry Rooney from the same club. Adam Flanagan is from Clonard which is barely inside the southern border and Conor Gillespie is from Summerhill, also south of that line. In the forwards, Tormey, Harnan and Bray all Navan or South of it. And of course it bears repeating, so too are Wallaces, McMahon etc. Graham Reilly is from Colmcille's which is on the eastern seaboard. You could call it either, mostly it seems to be considered South Meath though. In the panel that didn't start vs Wicklow the trend is repeated: Burke, Menton, K Reilly, O'Sullivan and Carroll are all from South Meath. It would be easier to list the exceptions, notably Newman and Keoghan. They are the only two players from North of Navan to start vs Westmeath. The substitute keeper, McHugh, who started against Tyrone is another that comes to mind.

Now the answer to this is absurdly obvious - it must be that the players in South Meath are better than the players in North Meath generally. Otherwise the panel wouldn't be selected that way. That view is borne out by the dearth of North Meath clubs playing Senior in Meath. Only Balinlough, Gaeil Colmcille & Wolfe Tones currently, that I can think of. So, that explains that. Probably. But to (finally) answer your question it is the North Meath clubs that feel the panel selection is unfair and unrepresentative. The argument is that plenty of excellent players could be found in average teams and Meath are not putting enough resources into scouting new players. I personally don't believe this is entirely fair considering Mick O'Dowd give a great number of players a chance (maybe too many) since he took over. However, if I've heard it once I've heard it a hundred times and perceived slights tend to be strong motivators. It is also not entirely incorrect, with undue influence constantly exerted by whatever teams reach the finals of each competition. Players tend to be called up en masse from championship winning sides with little attention paid to games and performers in the earlier rounds.

[Rossfan]

There's already a Westmeath so the obvious answer is a breakaway Northmeath.

[moysider]

The North Meath clubs seem set to vote against Mick O'Dowd from what I hear. A perceived lack of balance in the geographical and divisional spread of players on the panel partly responsible. There seems to be general feeling that he should step down amongst the supporters as well. Support for him has rallied somewhat since the Westmeath game, but personally I would be surprised if he survives. I don't even know which outcome is preferable though.  It might have helped him if Westmeath could have put up a decent show in the rest of the championship, but it wasn't to be.

Wha? Are you serious?
Not that I lie awake at night worrying about the state of football in your county but that is crazy.
The crazy thing though is 'the perceived lack of balance'. Who is perceiving what and why should there be a balance?

Isn't it a bit like what you were talking about re: underage footballers in Mayo getting on county panels?

Exactly. Not sure if its still the same - I've largely distanced myself from underage at this stage - but minor selection was a joke.
There was a selector for each division (north, south, east and west) and it appeared each had a quota of players to choose from his division.
I ll give you an example. Patrick Harte never played minor although he was good enough to be a panellist for 2 years and was easily the best midfielder in the county in his last year. He couldn t have been overlooked either because his club was winning things. But the north selector picked a midfielder from his own club ( who predictably never amounted to much) and the other midfielders came from the other divisions. That's what you get with balance.
Ronan McGarrity was similarly left out the previous year. We could have had a minor midfield of Gavin Duffy and Ronan in 99 I think it was? But 2 lads from the same club would never do.

[Tubberman]

The North Meath clubs seem set to vote against Mick O'Dowd from what I hear. A perceived lack of balance in the geographical and divisional spread of players on the panel partly responsible. There seems to be general feeling that he should step down amongst the supporters as well. Support for him has rallied somewhat since the Westmeath game, but personally I would be surprised if he survives. I don't even know which outcome is preferable though.  It might have helped him if Westmeath could have put up a decent show in the rest of the championship, but it wasn't to be.

Wha? Are you serious?
Not that I lie awake at night worrying about the state of football in your county but that is crazy.
The crazy thing though is 'the perceived lack of balance'. Who is perceiving what and why should there be a balance?

Isn't it a bit like what you were talking about re: underage footballers in Mayo getting on county panels?

Exactly. Not sure if its still the same - I've largely distanced myself from underage at this stage - but minor selection was a joke.
There was a selector for each division (north, south, east and west) and it appeared each had a quota of players to choose from his division.
I ll give you an example. Patrick Harte never played minor although he was good enough to be a panellist for 2 years and was easily the best midfielder in the county in his last year. He couldn t have been overlooked either because his club was winning things. But the north selector picked a midfielder from his own club ( who predictably never amounted to much) and the other midfielders came from the other divisions. That's what you get with balance.
Ronan McGarrity was similarly left out the previous year. We could have had a minor midfield of Gavin Duffy and Ronan in 99 I think it was? But 2 lads from the same club would never do.

Not doubting your main point, but in 99 the other midfielder was James Gill who was a fine underage player and went on to be a decent senior player. Also, I was under the impression McGarrity didn't play much football until Liam McHale coaxed from the bball court to the pitch in 2004!?

Apologies to Meath posters for derailing your thread, us Mayo lads just love grabbin' what's yours don't we

[lynchbhoy]

The North Meath clubs seem set to vote against Mick O'Dowd from what I hear. A perceived lack of balance in the geographical and divisional spread of players on the panel partly responsible. There seems to be general feeling that he should step down amongst the supporters as well. Support for him has rallied somewhat since the Westmeath game, but personally I would be surprised if he survives. I don't even know which outcome is preferable though.  It might have helped him if Westmeath could have put up a decent show in the rest of the championship, but it wasn't to be.

Wha? Are you serious?
Not that I lie awake at night worrying about the state of football in your county but that is crazy.
The crazy thing though is 'the perceived lack of balance'. Who is perceiving what and why should there be a balance?

I'm not actually a supporter of the view, for the record, except in the very limited respect that I do think there are too many Ratoath players on the panel.

However, that being said, the case is somewhat understandable. For a start, the most obvious point is that Ratoath (a South Meath Intermediate club) have five representatives (Conor McGill, E Wallace, J Wallace, Brian McMahon & Brian Power). Without debating the individual merits of each, it's fairly obvious that some have been advanced before their time. I don't think that's really up for debate. Is there another comparable situation in any other county that you know of? Possibly so, and if there is I would like to know about it. In our experience however, the dominance of Ratoath players in the selection has been something of an anomaly.

Added to the Ratoath issue,  the vast majority of the panel are from South Meath (the line drawn generally is North or South of Navan, with Navan considered South). Of the defenders that started against Wicklow, five out of the six are from south of that line. Paddy O'Rourke from Skryne similarly, and of course Harry Rooney from the same club. Adam Flanagan is from Clonard which is barely inside the southern border and Conor Gillespie is from Summerhill, also south of that line. In the forwards, Tormey, Harnan and Bray all Navan or South of it. And of course it bears repeating, so too are Wallaces, McMahon etc. Graham Reilly is from Colmcille's which is on the eastern seaboard. You could call it either, mostly it seems to be considered South Meath though. In the panel that didn't start vs Wicklow the trend is repeated: Burke, Menton, K Reilly, O'Sullivan and Carroll are all from South Meath. It would be easier to list the exceptions, notably Newman and Keoghan. They are the only two players from North of Navan to start vs Westmeath. The substitute keeper, McHugh, who started against Tyrone is another that comes to mind.

Now the answer to this is absurdly obvious - it must be that the players in South Meath are better than the players in North Meath generally. Otherwise the panel wouldn't be selected that way. That view is borne out by the dearth of North Meath clubs playing Senior in Meath. Only Balinlough, Gaeil Colmcille & Wolfe Tones currently, that I can think of. So, that explains that. Probably. But to (finally) answer your question it is the North Meath clubs that feel the panel selection is unfair and unrepresentative. The argument is that plenty of excellent players could be found in average teams and Meath are not putting enough resources into scouting new players. I personally don't believe this is entirely fair considering Mick O'Dowd give a great number of players a chance (maybe too many) since he took over. However, if I've heard it once I've heard it a hundred times and perceived slights tend to be strong motivators. It is also not entirely incorrect, with undue influence constantly exerted by whatever teams reach the finals of each competition. Players tend to be called up en masse from championship winning sides with little attention paid to games and performers in the earlier rounds.

I find this crazy. firstly who from north meath is god enough to make it?
There are lads from south meath that I don't think are quite good enough but fecks sake - this is some hissy fit.
who is the instigator ? wolfe tones ? the 'bring back cian ward brigade' (he was good but maybe too many injuries now to be as good as he was).

if ODowd was to go - who would take over?
Harnan, davy nelson?

was feck all south meath men on the panel for years , now theres loads of them (and most are good ) so why the whinging.
Don't think ODowd could have done much more than he has!