Hoganstand

[DB_An_Mhi]

Meath Admin do not allow much criticism of Banty that's for sure. Even pretty tame stuff. I have lost count of the number of posts that have been butchered or omitted.

Ordinarily been banned from HS would be a badge of honour. I guess in Myles case, it is just good judgement.

Welcome back Hardy, must have been a long journey home. We missed your frank (yet witty) observations from last Sunday. It is good to talk, so don't bottle them up.

I have nothing to say, DB, to be honest. My enthusiasm has been slowly decomposing under this regime and last Sunday sitting perishing in Croke Park and watching the same old shite, only worse, put paid to it altogether. All I have to hope for now is that our inevitable early exit from the qualifiers will put an end to this unfortunate flirtation with folly and we can make a fresh new start in the Autumn.

It was like groundhog day, 12 months later. I can honestly say that if we get a game in the qualifiers a long way from home, I may consider doing the unthinkable and stay put. It is one thing to support the team in spite of the wee fella, but if I get the feeling the players have lost interest (lack of fight by many last Sunday would suggest so), then I'm not going to put more effort into travelling than they do on the field of play. Another Limerick scenario must not happen yet I get the feeling it might. It may all end sooner than we think.

Rumours of another defection appear to be false! So that is some good news!

[Offalylad]

Thank God for this site. Hoganstand is just so full of drivel and immature posters. Head wrecking altogether.

[Lar Naparka]

Meath Admin do not allow much criticism of Banty that's for sure. Even pretty tame stuff. I have lost count of the number of posts that have been butchered or omitted.

Ordinarily been banned from HS would be a badge of honour. I guess in Myles case, it is just good judgement.

Welcome back Hardy, must have been a long journey home. We missed your frank (yet witty) observations from last Sunday. It is good to talk, so don't bottle them up.

I have nothing to say, DB, to be honest. My enthusiasm has been slowly decomposing under this regime and last Sunday sitting perishing in Croke Park and watching the same old shite, only worse, put paid to it altogether. All I have to hope for now is that our inevitable early exit from the qualifiers will put an end to this unfortunate flirtation with folly and we can make a fresh new start in the Autumn.

Count your blessings , Hardy.
Aren't you blessed that you don't hail from my beloved Mayo? You'd have some woeful lament to play on your fiddle, if you did.
Seriously, there seems to be a lot wrong with Meath football and it doesn't look as if anything is being done about it.
It seems to me that the malaise, whatever it is, set in before Sean Boylan retired. From what friends in Meath have told me, the club scene is as lively as ever but the county team has been under-performing for years.
I felt the team Meath met last Sunday was a useful but limited one. If Geraghty's goal had stood and Meath had managed to win the game, I couldn't see them progressing any further.
Far too many players, the O'Rourkes in particular, didn't deliver on the day. There wasn't a Red Collier or a Martin O'Connell to be seen. From long year spent watching the goings on in Mayo, I feel the present squad isn't happy with the setup. They played as if they were just going through the motions and had no appetite for the contest. That's a long way off the displays Meath sides used to produce with monotonous regularity in times gone by. I thought that when Banty was appointed and widely accepted within the county, the problems would come to an end.
Right now, it seems he is having no more success at bringing unity to the camp than O'Brien or Coyle had.
What next for Meath football?

[Hardy]

I think that's about it, Lar. I don't know about the players’ psychology or whether they're happy or otherwise, but the team is not performing either to the level of the footballing talent it possesses or with the level of spirit and refusal to bend that we expect from our teams. It's bad enough not having it. It's worse not having it when it used to be your very defining characteristic. A loss is much more painful than a mere absence.

My own take on it is that it’s not that the players are not giving it or willing to give it. Maybe I’m wrong and the theory that this generation of players haven’t been raised in the hard school is right, but I’d give them a chance to prove themselves if led by someone who’s in charge and for whom this is the starting point.

The spirit of the county needs to be recovered and my personal opinion - well OK, prejudice - is that it won't be recovered by a wee fella from Monaghan or any fella of any size from anywhere other than within the heart of Meath football.

I was going to go on and speculate about possible candidates but feckit I think I‘ll go ahead and start a thread on it. At least it’ll give the people who’d rather we kept our mouths shut one more reason to squeal about “faceless discussion board critics”.  Their annoyance is about the only bit of entertainment I expect for the remainder of the Summer as I wait for this disastrous episode to fizzle to its inevitable end.

[Edit -on mature reflection I won't. It wouldn't be fair as long as the team is still training for the Championship.]

[Jinxy]

Our problems are much more deeply rooted than the senior team Hardy.
We're uncompetitive at underage too and the musical chairs nature of the county board does not help.
We need an influx of new blood and new ideas at all levels.
In short, we need a plan.