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Anyone got any insight into the make-up of the Leinster Panel for next Saturday in Kiltoom?

Most of Wexford's contenders are caught up in Club Championship unfortunately. Should be a healthy local (Westmeath) contingent I would expect.

Lads, have any of you cracked a rib in the recent past? How long was it before you could resume training/playing? 6 weeks, two months, worse?

Ta.

Is there a deadline for inter-county transfers for club players?

Thinking of de-mothing the gear and gettin out the Dubbin for one last hurrah ......

Well it's back down to Earth for the Wexford footballers after a few heady years flirting with the big boys at the top end of the National League. It was depressing to say the least to be relegated based on "scores for" after beating Meath by 7 points on the last day when we needed 8.

But in reality there's not much between the teams in Div 2 and Div 3, and looking thru our league fixtures, no game looks particularly easy, least of all this weekend's outing ...

O'Byrne Cup Finalists Longford come to Wexford Park first. The last few encounters were in New Ross so at least our guests will see a nice ground for a change.

I'm glad of the home fixture for openers, but I'd be a bit afraid of the opposition. Ideally, Longford would have been coming as O'Byrne Cup Champions, in which case I would have fancied us to bring them down to Earth. As it happens I imagine they'll be treating this weekend's fixture a bit more seriously than the Final. I'm sure Longford people remember only too well the excitement and delirium that gripped the county with their previous O'Byrne Cup title when they beat Westmeath in Mullingar. It wasn't exactly followed by any notable league or championship glory ....

The extra couple of games will have helped Longford, especially considering the quality of opposition they have overcome. Wexford's build-up has been quiet, and there's still some experimentation to be done at least in the early phases of the league. The spirit is good though, and initial scepticism about Jason Ryan's appointment seems to have abated and the early indications are of a happy camp.

But who's going to keep tabs on Brian Kavanagh? Nobody springs immediately to mind, and I think we'll have to try to cut out the supply. Our midfield is a work in progress and I don't expect to dominate there.

So it could be a high-scoring game, and Wexford Park in Februaury usually means a vicious wind blowing toward the town goal. Whoever makes the most of it will probably win.

Defeat would not be disastrous for either team, but Wexford will be only too aware of the potential consequences of an opening day defeat, after last year's fiasco in Dungarvan. Hopefully that'll be enough of a spur, and maybe one or two Longfordians might spare themselves a bit for the telly on Saturday-week 

Does he want to come back or doesn't he?
Do the fans want him back?
Does Coyle want him back or not?
Why did he leave? He didn't go to the US afaik.
Is he hard to deal with? He seems fairly tame, compared to some .....

Just curious.

Personally if there's one good thing about the Qualifiers (and there aren't many), it's seeing teams recover and go on a really good run after some of their "stars" abandon them after the provinicial campaign. Louth and Meath e.g.

Here's a thread for those of us who consider the first Quarter-Final in Croker on Sunday to be the important one (did you notice the competition on TSG was to win tickets to "the Dublin-Meath game"?) ...

Wexford line-up is:
Cooper, Morris, Wallace, Malone, Morrissey, D Murphy, N Murphy, Stafford, Bradley, Deeley, Barry, Flynn, Lyng, Colfer, Forde

This year Bealin has pretty much continued with the team from the League. We finished the League very strongly but that "form" can hardly be relied upon a full 9 weeks later when we start in the championship.

If I were a neutral I suppose I would have to concede that it was fair to give Louth a two-week break, and that break probably tips the odds in their favour. But if we can get into the game early enough I think we should be a match for them, and I feel we are capable of winning it.

It's 3 years since we beat Louth well in Parnell Park, and there's no doubt that they have come on a lot since that day, but I don't think we have gone back any. We'll miss Diarmuid  Kinsella, but we have more strength in depth now than we had back then, we now have a strong midfield, and the core of our team is vastly experienced (and it's not all bad experience, to paraphrase Colm O'Rourke).

From what I saw of Louth, I feel the defence can be vulnerable, and the forwards dangerous, and we're a bit like that ourselves, so it should be fairly high-scoring. Where we might shade it is midfield, and the breaks, but who knows after such a long layoff ... if we can reproduce and then step up the effort and commitment from the latter stages of the League we're in with a good shout.

A lot depends on Rory Stafford who was my player of the year last year, but has hardly featured in the league campaign. A big performance is needed from him I feel. Inside Deely, Lyng and Forde are capable of matching what Louth's big guns can do. But the man pulling the strings as always will be Red Barry. If Red can hold it all together, then there's a good chance we'll be back in a fortnight for a 4th consecutive semi-final.

A lot of "ifs" ....