Meath Forum

Meath Vs Kildare

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Great to get back to back wins. No harm in dreaming of 3 more wins but I can't see it happening. 2-4 more points and being competitive in Ballybofey would leave me feeling positive we are going in the right direction. As rough around the edges as it was today, at least there was a defensive plan in place. Really hard to know where we're at until after Cavan match.

MeathAbroad (Meath) - Posts: 38 - 25/02/2024 19:29:48    2528096

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Positive is we won playing badly. Campion was very good and the black card was harsh. We played sensible when down a man, holding ball and playing back , this was done despite the urges of some in crowd who wanted us to attack. Ie football stupidity. So that showed so that showed cop on.
Negatives, Our defense was cut open a few times which better teams would exploit, midfield has become a problem again. Kick outs just ain't where we need to be. I do think there is better kick outs in the dugout.

So we got the win playing badly and hopefully can kick on next week. But some issues need to be addressed.

royaldunne (Meath) - Posts: 19449 - 25/02/2024 19:59:15    2528103

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Replying To royaldunne:  "Positive is we won playing badly. Campion was very good and the black card was harsh. We played sensible when down a man, holding ball and playing back , this was done despite the urges of some in crowd who wanted us to attack. Ie football stupidity. So that showed so that showed cop on.
Negatives, Our defense was cut open a few times which better teams would exploit, midfield has become a problem again. Kick outs just ain't where we need to be. I do think there is better kick outs in the dugout.

So we got the win playing badly and hopefully can kick on next week. But some issues need to be addressed."
Campion showed great leadership in the 2nd half driving the team forward and being one of the few who seemed prepared to take on a shot. Defensively there's still a question mark over him however. McCormack had 3 from play from 11 before going off at HT. If we had another option for 6 I'd love to see Campion further up the pitch.

Blackspot09 (Meath) - Posts: 870 - 25/02/2024 20:46:12    2528118

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Great relief to get a second win which makes it five points out of a possible six at home. It wasn't pretty at times but there is plenty to admire - that Meathness of finding a way to get over the line.
That's the second time we have finished the stronger team, credit to the work being put in.
Fair play to Danny Dixon, he had a real impact. Getting the most out of players is what we all want the management group to do.
Taking to some Kildare fans they are very disillusioned at the moment.
Have to say Kevin Feely is a class act every time I see him.
Looking forward to the trip to Cavan and whatever it may bring.

Roger (Meath) - Posts: 471 - 25/02/2024 21:05:29    2528123

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good win again, if we lost we were brought right back into the mix of relegation so thats put to bed now. we go down to brefnni park next week as rank outsiders but with nothing to lose so its a lovely position to be in with a shot to nothing, so you never know where that could take us. cavan are no world beaters so we should be able to rattle them if were up for it, maybe we could catch them on the hop, given our history vs cavan in breffni park id imagine cavan are extremely confident of winning.

meath havent won a league game vs cavan in breffni park since 1965, thats a shocking statistic considering our all ireland winning teams in 60s, 80s and 90s at a time when cavan couldnt even win provincial titles. surely high time to get rid of that statistic

dickie10 (UK) - Posts: 696 - 25/02/2024 21:38:27    2528135

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Replying To royaldunne:  "Positive is we won playing badly. Campion was very good and the black card was harsh. We played sensible when down a man, holding ball and playing back , this was done despite the urges of some in crowd who wanted us to attack. Ie football stupidity. So that showed so that showed cop on.
Negatives, Our defense was cut open a few times which better teams would exploit, midfield has become a problem again. Kick outs just ain't where we need to be. I do think there is better kick outs in the dugout.

So we got the win playing badly and hopefully can kick on next week. But some issues need to be addressed."
RD you are spot on about the better kickouts in the dug out, if we don't make this change ASAP i worry we will get killed on kickouts. Any decent team who does their homework will press Brennans kickouts. Mcbride is injured now and Gray won't be back soon which means we will be very weak fielding kickouts. As was evident today with Kevin feely lording the skies. We need someone with a booming kickout to beat that press teams will put on us. Billy hogan has that long kick in him and unfortunately Sean doesn't.

Sheridan2010louth (Meath) - Posts: 143 - 25/02/2024 21:43:49    2528136

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Good win. Good spirit shown again. Big difference with 2 wins in a week, now 5 points from 8 so hopefully at least we can get a week without ott talk on this forum about us being a team in crisis.
Next game is winnable.

bdbuddah (Meath) - Posts: 1363 - 25/02/2024 22:30:17    2528147

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Replying To Sheridan2010louth:  "RD you are spot on about the better kickouts in the dug out, if we don't make this change ASAP i worry we will get killed on kickouts. Any decent team who does their homework will press Brennans kickouts. Mcbride is injured now and Gray won't be back soon which means we will be very weak fielding kickouts. As was evident today with Kevin feely lording the skies. We need someone with a booming kickout to beat that press teams will put on us. Billy hogan has that long kick in him and unfortunately Sean doesn't."
Indeed. And it will come back to haunt us unless it is sorted asap

royaldunne (Meath) - Posts: 19449 - 26/02/2024 06:43:40    2528172

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Replying To Blackspot09:  "Campion showed great leadership in the 2nd half driving the team forward and being one of the few who seemed prepared to take on a shot. Defensively there's still a question mark over him however. McCormack had 3 from play from 11 before going off at HT. If we had another option for 6 I'd love to see Campion further up the pitch."
Campion is a definite starter for me. Just not at 6. He isn't suited to the role at all. As you said the only player to really back himself around the 40 and kick for scores. The forwards didn't do it. We seem to be perfectly fine kicking aimlessly into forward line to lose the ball but not take a shot at goal. Why are they afraid?

royaldunne (Meath) - Posts: 19449 - 26/02/2024 06:48:14    2528173

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Replying To bdbuddah:  "Good win. Good spirit shown again. Big difference with 2 wins in a week, now 5 points from 8 so hopefully at least we can get a week without ott talk on this forum about us being a team in crisis.
Next game is winnable."
I don't think there has been any ott. We have beat an average louth team and a terrible Kildare team who most likely will be relegated with 0 points. Not taking away from those wins they are important. However it does not take away from the problems this management face and some say created for themselves, ie no decent kick out strategies, one forward scoring from play, aimlessly kicking possession away by lobbing ball into forwards. No cohesive defensive plans , no reliable free taker , midfield getting cleaned out. No recognized 6, and playing a player they're totally out of position. , lacking pace in important areas .These problems have not gone away. And management must sort them out. If everyone can see them why do they not ? Now my forever optimism is that by next week a light bulb will go off and we will begin to sort thing out. That is my hope. If we do we have the players who can put us in promotion mix at end of league.

royaldunne (Meath) - Posts: 19449 - 26/02/2024 06:59:29    2528177

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Replying To royaldunne:  "Campion is a definite starter for me. Just not at 6. He isn't suited to the role at all. As you said the only player to really back himself around the 40 and kick for scores. The forwards didn't do it. We seem to be perfectly fine kicking aimlessly into forward line to lose the ball but not take a shot at goal. Why are they afraid?"
I agree. Although on my original point Campion in the sin bin when McCormack got one of his 3 from play. Regardless I'd still like to see him in the forwards. He has shown before for Meath that when he fully fit an injury free he is a very capable forward at this level and one of the few who has performed ok at the higher level like on the super 8s a few years back. But obviously him moving up depends on us finding a better option at 6 which the fact he's there in the first place suggests there's isn't a better option

Blackspot09 (Meath) - Posts: 870 - 26/02/2024 08:29:10    2528192

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Replying To royaldunne:  "I don't think there has been any ott. We have beat an average louth team and a terrible Kildare team who most likely will be relegated with 0 points. Not taking away from those wins they are important. However it does not take away from the problems this management face and some say created for themselves, ie no decent kick out strategies, one forward scoring from play, aimlessly kicking possession away by lobbing ball into forwards. No cohesive defensive plans , no reliable free taker , midfield getting cleaned out. No recognized 6, and playing a player they're totally out of position. , lacking pace in important areas .These problems have not gone away. And management must sort them out. If everyone can see them why do they not ? Now my forever optimism is that by next week a light bulb will go off and we will begin to sort thing out. That is my hope. If we do we have the players who can put us in promotion mix at end of league."
I think defensively we are quite sound. I am mostly worried about any sort of attacking structure when unable to kick first time. Having said that, next week's game is actually winnable. Cavan seem to really only have one high scoring forward and mostly score from frees which should be closely looked at. 7 pts at end of campaign would be quite acceptable but there are rightly concerns about our setup particularly when attacking. Aside from Donegal and Armagh, the standard of div. 2 doesn't seem great and way off div. 1 team standards.

winatallcost (Meath) - Posts: 511 - 26/02/2024 08:59:18    2528197

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Replying To Blackspot09:  "I agree. Although on my original point Campion in the sin bin when McCormack got one of his 3 from play. Regardless I'd still like to see him in the forwards. He has shown before for Meath that when he fully fit an injury free he is a very capable forward at this level and one of the few who has performed ok at the higher level like on the super 8s a few years back. But obviously him moving up depends on us finding a better option at 6 which the fact he's there in the first place suggests there's isn't a better option"
I disagree. He is playing very well at 6 and offers far more to the team from there than he did at 10 or 12 where he did a lot of tracking back but couldn't influence the game as much from there.

BigJoe14 (Meath) - Posts: 935 - 26/02/2024 09:23:41    2528201

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Replying To BigJoe14:  "I disagree. He is playing very well at 6 and offers far more to the team from there than he did at 10 or 12 where he did a lot of tracking back but couldn't influence the game as much from there."
Playing very well going forward but still a question mark over him defensively at 6 IMO.

Blackspot09 (Meath) - Posts: 870 - 26/02/2024 09:40:55    2528209

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Replying To Sheridan2010louth:  "Good character building win, I thought Kildare were a complete mess to be honest, Daniel Flynn might have been meaths best player, still very concerned that we don't have a forward other than Eoghan Frayne who can get scores, Costello,
jack o'connor, daithi McGowan and shane walsh didn't score today from play, simply not good enough. As mad as it sounds promotion is in our hands now. Win our remaining 3 games and we are up to div 1."
I would agree with this. I realise that we finished the last two games well but we are struggling to take scores throughout the games. Not sure if many remember but in O'Rourke's day we were often very mediocre in the league but had players like O'Rourke who could get their own possession up front and take a score from play.

Gaelic football is different nowadays and more defensive but we need players who can take a score in tight situations. In fairness, Lynch took a nice score from play at the end but I am not sure that we have anyone in the forwards that can consistently get good possession and take scores from play. Players seem to be reluctant to have a go during an attacking move and we end up sometimes with a hail mary attempt that goes wide.

Quite a few of our attacks are turned over and I am not sure if we are good enough to hold on to the ball for sustained periods to try to get the ball into a scoring position.

stillaroyal (Meath) - Posts: 224 - 26/02/2024 10:04:31    2528225

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Full credit to the team and management for figuring it out and grinding out 2 wins without really playing great in either. Was really impressed with how we closed out the game yesterday because prior to the last 10 we weren't playing well but we got the last 4 points and Kildare didn't really threaten at the end of the game. I still think against better teams and even yesterday if Kildare had Hyland, McCormack and Kirwan on the pitch they might have killed us off in the 3rd quarter when we had a lull. A lot of our players lack consistency in performance week to week and also within games. Not sure what's causing that. But we are almost guaranteed to stay up now which I did not think would happen 2 weeks ago so fair play to the team and management for doing that

LeitrimRoyal99 (Meath) - Posts: 1466 - 26/02/2024 10:22:37    2528233

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Replying To royaldunne:  "I don't think there has been any ott. We have beat an average louth team and a terrible Kildare team who most likely will be relegated with 0 points. Not taking away from those wins they are important. However it does not take away from the problems this management face and some say created for themselves, ie no decent kick out strategies, one forward scoring from play, aimlessly kicking possession away by lobbing ball into forwards. No cohesive defensive plans , no reliable free taker , midfield getting cleaned out. No recognized 6, and playing a player they're totally out of position. , lacking pace in important areas .These problems have not gone away. And management must sort them out. If everyone can see them why do they not ? Now my forever optimism is that by next week a light bulb will go off and we will begin to sort thing out. That is my hope. If we do we have the players who can put us in promotion mix at end of league."
A lot of the problem you mentioned predate COR, free taking issues/ kickout strategies/ lack of scoring forwards have been talked about as issues in many of the years before the current management came in and were complained about on this forum.
If you are only complaining of these issues only since COR came in you are not being consistent.

Another basic that was complained about on this forum before COR came in was that Andy selected all small forwards so we had no ball winners.

Looking at us being mid table in division 2 (typical position for us in last 15 years) and the points in above paragraph shows that, for me, criticism of our league performance this year up to this point has been over the top.

bdbuddah (Meath) - Posts: 1363 - 26/02/2024 10:24:27    2528235

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Replying To royaldunne:  "I don't think there has been any ott. We have beat an average louth team and a terrible Kildare team who most likely will be relegated with 0 points. Not taking away from those wins they are important. However it does not take away from the problems this management face and some say created for themselves, ie no decent kick out strategies, one forward scoring from play, aimlessly kicking possession away by lobbing ball into forwards. No cohesive defensive plans , no reliable free taker , midfield getting cleaned out. No recognized 6, and playing a player they're totally out of position. , lacking pace in important areas .These problems have not gone away. And management must sort them out. If everyone can see them why do they not ? Now my forever optimism is that by next week a light bulb will go off and we will begin to sort thing out. That is my hope. If we do we have the players who can put us in promotion mix at end of league."
This post is literally the definition of the OTT comments that bdbuddah was talking about. it's almost like a parody.
I;ve great time for RoyalDunne and his posts, as he is one of those that genuinely cares so I don't want to be critical of anyone on here.
Some don;t like colm or think we should have a Malachy O'Rourke or Jim Gavin over us. But Colm runs the show and it've very harsh to be critical of him when things are going poorly and then keep at it again and again when we are winning games.
We have three games left and probably expect one win from them maybe two if we really do well but it will be a slog.

49erroyal (Meath) - Posts: 65 - 26/02/2024 11:24:18    2528271

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Replying To royaldunne:  "I don't think there has been any ott. We have beat an average louth team and a terrible Kildare team who most likely will be relegated with 0 points. Not taking away from those wins they are important. However it does not take away from the problems this management face and some say created for themselves, ie no decent kick out strategies, one forward scoring from play, aimlessly kicking possession away by lobbing ball into forwards. No cohesive defensive plans , no reliable free taker , midfield getting cleaned out. No recognized 6, and playing a player they're totally out of position. , lacking pace in important areas .These problems have not gone away. And management must sort them out. If everyone can see them why do they not ? Now my forever optimism is that by next week a light bulb will go off and we will begin to sort thing out. That is my hope. If we do we have the players who can put us in promotion mix at end of league."
A fair bit of waffle there in fairness

southmeathgael (Meath) - Posts: 891 - 26/02/2024 11:37:45    2528280

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All in all, the quality was poor yesterday and it was two teams that are miles below where they should be in terms of performance and quality.

Thought out forwards really struggled, not that either are world beaters - but we missed the likes of Aaron Lynch, Jordan Morris and that general type of finisher inside. A lot of wasted possession and no real output.

We failed to score form play from the 12th min to the 45th minute of the game, and out next score from play came around the 62th minute. That's not good enough, especially playing with the wind. So an awful lot to work on

But that been said, we ground out a win again, a couple of decent performers and realistically speaking we are where we should be.

We are clearly not at that Donegal or Armagh level, although you'd like us to be somewhat competitive considering what Louth did against Armagh, and Cavan were unlucky not to beat Donegal - but we're 4th, probably safe at this stage with a game against Cavan this weekend which is going to be a good measure as to where we are at.

hyperache (Meath) - Posts: 208 - 26/02/2024 12:01:35    2528290

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