An Ríocht na MÍ Vs Tír Chonaill____An Uaimh, Dé Domhnaigh 13/3/11

[thejuice]

Very disappointed to read the score today. Fair enough the injuries didn't help but we are perilously low on decent replacements.

[Jinxy]

We're perilously low on players with balls tbh.

[agorm]

Not sure about the title An Ríocht na MÍ ! We are certainly no "Kingdom" based on that display.

This was a very depressing game to attend. The players seemed as if they were on a sunday afternoon stroll, no passion, no life, no drive. When they did get the ball players like McAnarney dropped the ball on an alarming number of occasions. McGuinness's distribution was of junior B standard. They were not the only ones. Brian Meade fowling and then arguing with the ref. Brian Sheridan looked like a rabbit caught in headlights.

They semed to have no game plan, crazy number of short passes and they couldnt even do that right on many occasions. No matter who went on Murphy they couldnt handle him. Some of his scores would be of colm O'Rourke standard, he's a class player.

Very few players came out with any pride.  I thought Moyles, Joe Sheridan, Menton, Kenny and Nestor tried hard while brendan Murphy was deendable and handled anything that was thrown at him though irionically he didnt have a shot to save.

Regarding the management I just dont know. I was a supporter of the appointment but am begining to worry that his tactics dont suit our players. Perhaps they are doing heavy training but there is no excuse for this. At the same time you cannot make a silk purse out of a sows ear and perhaps we are paying thenprice for the way we run things in eath and the poor performances at underage in recent years.

After today the next Meath game I am going to is the championship....not paying 13euro for that crap again.

[The Claw]

I've only seen Meath twice this year, vs a poor Sligo team and against Donegal yesterday and I can only imagine that they are playing very little football in training. As Agorm said, basic mistakes were rampant, bad handing, bad passing, bad decision making.
Things weren't helped by injuries and I thought players were played out of place. I felt sorry for Moyles on Murphy, he was out of position at corner back. Donegal were also allowed to set the shape of the game from what I could see. Morgan was out following Karl Lacey all day where he should have been told to stay in the full forward line and make Lacey mark him.
It is an indictment of the team that we rely on such a young player but Graham Reilly was a huge loss, they had no penetration if the route one wasn't on.
I thought they faired about even in midfield. I thought Joe had a very good game, seemed be the only forward playing with fire, he was shouting his head off at one stage mad for the ball.
Nestor tried hard but had an nightmare, everything he tried just wasn't working.
I think the team are pretty fit at this stage, so Banty has to give them more football. I hear that the training sessions are very short, 50 minutes max, they can't possibly get enough touches of the ball in such a short time to be comfortable to play a game for 70.

[Declan]

Pretty damning stuff from McGee

By Eugene McGee
Monday March 14 2011
CAN Meath football really be in such a deplorable state as suggested by their resounding defeat to Donegal in Navan yesterday? I am a long time watching Meath football teams, including the 17-year barren spell when they failed to win a Leinster Championship from 1970, but I cannot remember anything as bad as this 0-15 to 0-9 reverse.

Every county has their own special traditions, which are used to boost their players when they wear the county jersey, and Meath's trademarks over the years were never in doubt.

They played direct football, went through opponents rather than around them, scored long-range points like no other county when they were on song and, above all, they never threw in the towel even when defeat looked inevitable.

Well, watching this performance, I could not see a shred of evidence that any of the attributes that have made Meath so famous exist among this group of players.

For the couple of thousand spectators present, this was truly a miserable day as they watched their team being dismantled from start to finish by Donegal.

The Meath defence – particularly the fullback line – was a shambles; they rarely won clean possession at midfield; and their forwards, who managed only a couple of points from play on their own ground, were like lost sheep.

They did not know where to position themselves, played too far out-field when they had the wind at their backs and generally lacked any sort of cohesion.

Meath, playing with the wind, went 24 minutes from the second minute without getting a score, and they also failed to score in the opening 20 minutes of the second half.

Impressive

As regards the old Meath stand-by of at least making their physical presence felt against opponents, well I cannot recall one instance of a Meath player hitting a Donegal player a decent, fair wallop.

In fact it was very much the opposite: on several occasions Meath players were left sitting on the ground after an engagement with a Donegal man.

Now, I must add that Donegal were quite impressive in this game and they had a 'cut' about their behaviour on the field that showed a lot of intelligence.

As always, their bread-and-butter game was the handpass, but I felt they made better use than usual of the foot in this game.

Of course, when you have an outstanding player like Michael Murphy as your targetman it is very encouraging to kick the ball in high and long, and indeed Donegal did make good use of that basic tactic.

What was very noticeable from an early stage was the ease with which Donegal won man-to-man contests for the ball in all areas of the field, right to the end of the game. Remembering how often previous Donegal teams have dropped out of contention for long periods in games, this was a big change.

Meath must have been mixing up tactics with the Tic-Tac sweets because they completely lost their way in that department from the start.

Despite playing with a very strong wind straight down to the town end, full-forward Joe Sheridan was playing closer to midfield for most of the first half.

In general, Meath only had a couple of forwards inside scoring range for most of that half with the wind so it was little wonder they only managed just four firsthalf points, three from frees.

Had Donegal even attempted easy goal chances they had set up rather than taking points, Meath's embarrassment would have been a lot worse.

And it must have been particularly annoying for Meath followers to watch one Donegal kickout after another being won unchallenged and often unmarked by a Donegal player.

On all known evidence and bearing in mind that they are Leinster champions and have played in two recent All-Ireland semifinals, Meath cannot be as bad as they looked yesterday.

But after three league defeats to Laois, Antrim and Donegal, there must surely be grave concerns about the trend in which this Meath team is going – straight downwards.

True, they are missing important players like full-back Kevin Reilly, but the overall attitude of the players in this game was so dreadful that it will take much more than a new player to stop the rot.

Of course, Meath still have time on their side as regards the championship and no county has been better at coming from nowhere to championship success as they have been.

Depressed Meath followers will certainly be hoping this is one great tradition that will actually kick in before summer arrives.

- Eugene McGee

[Cde]

Pretty damning stuff from McGee

By Eugene McGee
Monday March 14 2011
CAN Meath football really be in such a deplorable state as suggested by their resounding defeat to Donegal in Navan yesterday? I am a long time watching Meath football teams, including the 17-year barren spell when they failed to win a Leinster Championship from 1970, but I cannot remember anything as bad as this 0-15 to 0-9 reverse.

Every county has their own special traditions, which are used to boost their players when they wear the county jersey, and Meath's trademarks over the years were never in doubt.

They played direct football, went through opponents rather than around them, scored long-range points like no other county when they were on song and, above all, they never threw in the towel even when defeat looked inevitable.

Well, watching this performance, I could not see a shred of evidence that any of the attributes that have made Meath so famous exist among this group of players.

For the couple of thousand spectators present, this was truly a miserable day as they watched their team being dismantled from start to finish by Donegal.

The Meath defence – particularly the fullback line – was a shambles; they rarely won clean possession at midfield; and their forwards, who managed only a couple of points from play on their own ground, were like lost sheep.

They did not know where to position themselves, played too far out-field when they had the wind at their backs and generally lacked any sort of cohesion.

Meath, playing with the wind, went 24 minutes from the second minute without getting a score, and they also failed to score in the opening 20 minutes of the second half.

Impressive

As regards the old Meath stand-by of at least making their physical presence felt against opponents, well I cannot recall one instance of a Meath player hitting a Donegal player a decent, fair wallop.

In fact it was very much the opposite: on several occasions Meath players were left sitting on the ground after an engagement with a Donegal man.

Now, I must add that Donegal were quite impressive in this game and they had a 'cut' about their behaviour on the field that showed a lot of intelligence.

As always, their bread-and-butter game was the handpass, but I felt they made better use than usual of the foot in this game.

Of course, when you have an outstanding player like Michael Murphy as your targetman it is very encouraging to kick the ball in high and long, and indeed Donegal did make good use of that basic tactic.

What was very noticeable from an early stage was the ease with which Donegal won man-to-man contests for the ball in all areas of the field, right to the end of the game. Remembering how often previous Donegal teams have dropped out of contention for long periods in games, this was a big change.

Meath must have been mixing up tactics with the Tic-Tac sweets because they completely lost their way in that department from the start.

Despite playing with a very strong wind straight down to the town end, full-forward Joe Sheridan was playing closer to midfield for most of the first half.

In general, Meath only had a couple of forwards inside scoring range for most of that half with the wind so it was little wonder they only managed just four firsthalf points, three from frees.

Had Donegal even attempted easy goal chances they had set up rather than taking points, Meath's embarrassment would have been a lot worse.

And it must have been particularly annoying for Meath followers to watch one Donegal kickout after another being won unchallenged and often unmarked by a Donegal player.

On all known evidence and bearing in mind that they are Leinster champions and have played in two recent All-Ireland semifinals, Meath cannot be as bad as they looked yesterday.

But after three league defeats to Laois, Antrim and Donegal, there must surely be grave concerns about the trend in which this Meath team is going – straight downwards.

True, they are missing important players like full-back Kevin Reilly, but the overall attitude of the players in this game was so dreadful that it will take much more than a new player to stop the rot.

Of course, Meath still have time on their side as regards the championship and no county has been better at coming from nowhere to championship success as they have been.

Depressed Meath followers will certainly be hoping this is one great tradition that will actually kick in before summer arrives.

- Eugene McGee

   still deluded

[armaghniac]

The point is that the traditional Meath style would have been effective against Donegal. It has been said, with some reason, that Armagh drew something from Meath's traditional style of play and Donegal has always found Armagh hard to deal with in this century.