If we are serious with progression at Inter County level, you would need to enact a 20/30 year plan.

You would need buy in from non traditional hurling areas, i.e North Meath. It would have to start with designated dual coaches I'd say being appointed to certain areas and building from the ground up.

It would have to start with schools coaching and work its way into the clubs. Why I say dual coaches is because I believe up until maybe u10's trainings should be 1 night football, 1 night hurling under the umbrella of "GAA" training.

Children will develop a sort of ambidexterity between the 2 codes and then be able to potentially take up both when moving towards more organised games at u12 level etc.

You would probably need the formation of amalgamations at underage level to give smaller clubs a chance at surviving as I feel football will always still be the biggest puller in these areas. I would push towards regional level centres of excellence up until maybe u15's.

Specialist coaches brought in to do particular skills based training, strength and conditioning etc. Ideally these would be ex inter county hurlers from successful counties that would get buy in from players.

On the coaching end of things it would take a lot of buy in from parents and club members to be trained up to a standard where they could take on some of the more nuanced facets of the game.

There would also have to be a push for equal opportunity of resources that football development squads get. To be honest I really could see some of these strategies working in the long term but it would take time, investment and a lot of buy in from people all over the county.

3rdmanin (Meath) - Posts: 19 - 08/11/2024 10:44:18    2578902

Let's focus on improving the football first, never mind hurling!

BigJoe14 (Meath) - Posts: 998 - 08/11/2024 12:25:53    2578925

allroyal (Meath) - Posts: 5 - 08/11/2024 15:04:26    2578950

Stiofan (Meath) - Posts: 67 - 08/11/2024 15:41:28    2578961

Joe_soap1 (Meath) - Posts: 84 - 09/11/2024 00:21:24    2579007

lost too many big hurling clubs in the heartland and gained very few, even before we start talking of spreading hurling to north and east meath. Rathmolyon, Athboy, Killyon and Boardsmill all have 25 senior titles between them i think. we need to get all of those clubs competeing for senior semi finals again. Ratoath and Kildalkey have been the only clubs to breakthrough in last 20 years from winning nothing before. Kilskyre/Moylagh and Clan na Gael has great potential as theiir in hurling area and people in the areas already are very interested in it. very hard to compete for interest in hurling north of kells or east of navan. Vast majority of GAA people in those regions will probabaly never have been to a hurling game in their lives, thats almost 50% of the landmass of the county. Navan and Dunboyne need huge resources put in as well they have population to have seperate players playiing football and hurling.

dickie10 (UK) - Posts: 790 - 10/11/2024 23:19:14    2579159

Totally unconnected to the topic at hand, but does anyone know what exactly the "constitutional" status of Moylagh/Kilskyre is? I presume they're still counted as 2 separate clubs administratively, especially since Moylagh still field their own football team. Say at county board meetings, do Moylagh get one vote and Kilskyre one vote?

Reason I ask is, if they were to win the IHC, there's a good chance they'd be unable to enter the Leinster JHC since they're a combined team made up of 2 different clubs.

CastleBravo (Meath) - Posts: 1668 - 16/11/2024 10:59:52    2579850

Watched the Ratoath and Bray game at the weekend and I'm not sure what was a worse standard, the hurling, the ref or the commentator on Clubber.

You can slightly forgive Ratoath considering it was their first venture into Leinster and they had such a long break but the fact that Bray played most of the game with 14 men means you should be beating them. 3-4 of their stronger players just didn't turn up unfortunately.

I am sick of looking at ref's in the weaker county's and the Ratoath Bray game was no different. It is like they are looking at a totally different game to the top tier teams. Everything is a free, why is that?? Is there are any ref's on here that could explain the taught process or are we dealing with people who are not capable or do not understand the game?

I watched the Ulster semi finals at the weekend as well and not only is that how hurling should be played but also how a game should be refereed. Stay out of the game unless its blatant and any 50/50 free should be play on.

How has Antrim and Derry club teams gone so far ahead of us? The Westmeath champions beating Thomastown as well, i know that was a freak result and Thomastown are just worn out and would normally win that game by 15 points but its still an incredible result for Westmeath hurling.

Is our county board holding hurling back? probably.
Will our new football manager be in any way accommodating to dual players? I am hearing he wont.
Are our clubs doing enough? Absolutely not.
What will be done about it? Nothing.. The county board are happy with where the County hurling team is at the minute, out of the way and not causing a fuss.

We as a hurling community are just gone too soft and accepting being the poor relation.

Tobefair80 (Meath) - Posts: 74 - 21/11/2024 13:16:13    2580569

Unless the game is played in every school in the big towns in the county or at least every second level then its a waiste of time asking where its going wrong , its clear.
I would think the secondary school in trim is the only one playing and its not exactly st kierans kilkenny at that.

hurlit (Meath) - Posts: 425 - 21/11/2024 16:56:30    2580621

hard to know why we are so poor in leinster and why westmeath clubs are so far ahead in both hurling and football. Personally thought ratoath would go well and seemed to be doing alright but then just died.

Id be of the opinion that Football will rule the roost this year on the county front and likely they'll be no apatite for players to join the hurling panel. Im already hearing that numbers are poor for the initial squads called in.

Rickoshay (Meath) - Posts: 33 - 21/11/2024 17:52:30    2580629

CrookedSticks (Fermanagh) - Posts: 7 - 21/11/2024 17:54:31    2580631

Hard to know but id agree on the schools Trima and Athboy would be the only ones driving it and Athboy would have at least half their players from westmeath clubs. Navan, Kells and Dunboyne it plays second fiddle in those schools. badly need to get the traditional clubs back firing again though before trying to spread it to other areas. Kilskyre need plenty of resources put into them they can pick from oldcastle town and have great potential.

dickie10 (UK) - Posts: 790 - 21/11/2024 21:01:02    2580652

It wouldn't shock me to see a few established names not playing for Meath in 2025. The expectation next year is that they win Division 2B and the Christy Ring. That'd be a valued achievement for lots of younger players but for the older lads it's really a case of "been there, done that". Some of them have 3 Christy Rings and 2 Div 2Bs now.

CastleBravo (Meath) - Posts: 1668 - 22/11/2024 10:13:52    2580684

Stop wasting too much time with it, it is what it is. Probably over resourced imo. This prob won't get through cause you have to love hurling or your some sort of antagonist but I would stop hurling in the county tmoro if I could and put everything into football.

southmeathgael (Meath) - Posts: 938 - 22/11/2024 13:20:37    2580711

glenny (Meath) - Posts: 1116 - 23/11/2024 10:09:34    2580798

I'm definitely no expert on Meath county hurling, I've been to a few games over the years (mainly Christy Ring cup finals and few other games).

But a few years ago a poster on Hogan stand put up a table of the number of registered adult club teams (not clubs) in various counties and just like in football we are clearly operating in inter county hurling well below where we should be based on the numbers of teams.

(https://hoganstand.com/Forum/Details/112128?County=National&PageNumber=1&TopicID=112128) .

For 2021-22 the figures were as follows for the first and second tier counties:

1. Cork 210
2. Tipperary 133
3. Dublin 128
4. Galway 111
5. Kilkenny 108
6. Wexford 96
7. Limerick 94
8. Waterford 83
9. Clare 80
10. Laois 56
11. Offaly 49
12. Antrim 47
13. Meath 45
14. Kildare 32
15. Westmeath 31
16. Kerry 25
17. Down 22
18. Carlow 18

In terms of adult teams Meath were well ahead of Westmeath/ Kerry/ Down and Carlow, teams who are higher up the inter county structures than. We were only marginally behind Offaly and Antrim.

Based on adult club teams we should be a Joe McDonnagh team (ie. In the bracket of 12'th to 17'th inter county teams) and sometimes make it into the Leinster championship proper.

Our inter county teams, in both football and hurling are punching well below our weight based on the number of players in the county.

bdbuddah (Meath) - Posts: 1402 - 24/11/2024 13:12:56    2580981

Tobefair80 (Meath) - Posts: 74 - 25/11/2024 09:19:10    2581111

Meathboyos86 (Meath) - Posts: 56 - 26/11/2024 15:32:33    2581325

i think it a bit over the tp saying meath will never be relevant in football again, sounds a botter hurling head when people ay that. they are already relevant by being in div 2 the same division the last two all ireland champions came from, also minor all ireland winners 3 years ago and reigning leinster u20 champions, most outsiders would condiser that a county on the rise and the likes of westmeath and louth would be very excited by the prospect.
i would think considering the poor standar of club football in meath the county football teams are punching ABOVE thier weight to stay in division 2 practically pemeneantly outside of 1 year in 2013.
Its daft talk like that that put paid to likes of cavan and louths glory days in 40s and 50s, talking themselves down and likes of westmeath and kildare who never have half enough belief in themselves, i think Meath football needs to do plenty of planning and investugating when things are going bad but never let apathy or talking themselves down happen, apathy is very dangerous in a county . Its probably the likes of apathy that means counties like wicklow and antrim with huge populations never get the most out of themselves. Louth are not a huge amount ahead of meath they got their big win over us in the summer but meath finished in 4th in league and louth finshed in 6th, the league table dosent lie. the truth is their nothing between the likes of 3rd place in div 2 (Cork) and mid table div 3 (Sligo) on a given day anyone of 10-14 teams can easily beat the other in that mid section between div 2 and div 3.
But it probably helps Meath hurling people feel good when meath football is going average too but it dosent help anything, meath hurling is in very bad way they are in division 4 of the league and the 3rd tier championship. its hard to get young lads who are good in both codes to commit to hurling over football, all platers will want a crack at playing the best teams in ireland even if they get beaten.
If meath footballers were in tailteann cup this summer playing wicklow and london and hurlers were in liam mccarthy playing kilkenny and galway and in league playing limerick or wexford in navan then you would see players mad to get involved in ahead of football. im sure majority of meath hurlers would be excited to play the likes of kilkenny or cork in a competitive hurling game even if there was very little chance of beating them.

dickie10 (UK) - Posts: 790 - 26/11/2024 19:42:50    2581367

Tobefair80 (Meath) - Posts: 74 - 27/11/2024 16:21:41    2581494