Replying To brian:  "Or maybe as i said league game dublin played with the hand brake on and won by 4, took it off for Leinster final and made a show of us."

Replying To Thelongwoodslasher:  "show stopper here .should not be..."ah its Dublin...lets not measure ourselves against them
the answer ...as to how we went form a credible 4 point tdefeat in Parnell Park to a demoralising crushing defeat a month or so later are multi layered.
One of the reasons , how, that we have never spoken about was how Andy & Co & Panel....did not manage the , nearly imperceptible...but without a doubt..rising level of optimism & expectation that was allowed to grow post that league defeat & the Kildare & Wicklow wins ….we lost the run of ourselves...and Dublin do what they do to Teams who "get ahead" of themselves"

Replying To royaldunne:  "Dublin aside.
You didn't mention the other counties I spoke of. Mayo , Kerry Galway, even Donegal."

Replying To brian:  "TBF i think that's a solid point. Some and I'm not going to say all on here did lose the run and said we were back. We're Meath and we'll give them a rattle and who know's on the day. I was certainly of the opinion we'd not do worse tha 2019 and was left with my tail firmly between my legs.

Some also refused to acknowledge the progress that was made and said sure we only beat Wicklow and Kildare and they both played rubbish rather than giving our boys some praise for how they performed, adjusted to what was presented to them and won out convincingly in the end.

And you're right, Dublin saw a rising threat and swatted us like flies. They tore into us starting in fifth gear and we couldn't breath to keep pace with them. We needed to keep it tight for the first 20 minutes and as they say don't give them a goal and in the first ten minutes we gave them everything they wanted. Cluxton kick out, caught by Con at CHF ran straight down the throat of a soft Meath central spine, McEntee and McGill who are both still there for some reason but were missing in action for that phase of play. We didn't score from the 7th to the 41st minute and that's not good enough.

Think its slightly unfair to say they didn't managing rising optimism as a team as the games were week on and we'd score 7 goals and 5 goals in consecutive weekends. Granted we only scored 23 points across those 2 games which didn't help. I don't think that would've gotten inside the panels collective thinking at all, but who knows."

Replying To Thelongwoodslasher:  "it is such fine margins and demonstrates yet again all the various levels we have to get right in order for us to climb that particular mountain
and being honest , I wouldn't have been too hard at the time as I too got a little carried away...thats why I was so annoyed & disappointed at the recent Mayo calls....we seemed not to learn how important the whole mood music and sense about the place needs to be …...yet again , I felt we got most if not all of the marginal calls We had to make on that day wrong ...and really this is where im losing patience . We are in that precarious middle ground...where one really good result (and call)...can put us on a truly sustainable footing....or one bad result or Major Call...can knock us back right back with the rest of the pack. Andy doesn't have another bad result in him.....that is the really unfortunate position that he has backed himself into. And I like most supporters on her ..more than anything want to place our faith & support in someone...we are crying out for it"

Replying To brian:  "They all beat us at their ease.

Donegal in 2019 played us three times, won pulling up, did the same in the league in 2020
Mayo played us every year since 2019 and won pulling up
Kerry played us in 2019 in the championship and won pulling up, they didn't extend themselves in the league

You're the man that's been to many of these games but tell me honestly when is the last time we beat one of those teams?

From what i recall our last victories are as follows :
Dublin 2010 Championship
Mayo 2009 Championship
Kerry 2001 Championship
Donegal 1992 Championship
Tyrone 2007 Championship

League i couldn't hazard a guess at all as they were mainstays of Division 1 for so long.

Galway I've said are in a group of teams in 6 to 12 where any team could beat the other teams (Galway, Roscommon, Monaghan, Armagh, Meath, Cork, Kildare, Clare) yet I'd not put your money on beating any one of those teams right now.

When have we last beaten any of the above teams :
Galway league in 2016 i think, championship 2007
Roscommon can't remember when we've played them recently
Monaghan i can't remember its been that long, a draw with the last kick in a league game last year was our best result i can recall
Armagh league in 15/16 but open to correction could've been 2018, championship 1999
Cork League in 2019, championship 1999
Kildare League 2019, championship 2020
Clare League and championship 2019 both close contests

That doesn't make for pretty reading at all.

Until we're playing and beating those 6/7 teams at the same stage/ranking/level as us regularly and getting an odd win over a top 5 team there's no point trying to argue we're close to the top table because quite simply we're not. We're comfortably in the top 6-13 teams in the country but nothing better or worse."

Replying To LeitrimRoyal99:  "You've pretty much proved the point about beating those 6-12 teams. Armagh the last time we played them we beat them. Kildare the last 2 times. Clare the last 5 or 6, I can't remember them every beating us, beat Cork the last time we played them, I believe the last Roscommon game was 2018 and it was a draw. It's seems to me that in 2019 we beat all those teams. Since Colm Nally has come in as coach under McEntee in 2019 we've beaten these teams way more often than we've lost to them. In fact we haven't lost to any of them bar Galway in 2019 and that was a 50/50 game where we shot ourselves in the foot. You said Mayo won pulling up against us. Fair enough in 2019 they were definitely the better team and pulled away in the last 15 mins. In 2020 they won by 1 point and we handed them a goal in injury time, hardly pulling up. And 2 weeks ago it was B team vs B team for the most part so you can't judge much off that. Kerry and Dublin are better teams than us and by a lot. Even then when they didn't have full teams in the league we stayed close. I don't think we are really close and on the verge of beating top 5/6 teams consistently but I don't think that's because of management, I think it's because of desperate underage teams for years. But to say our results against those 7-13 teams aren't good is just a lie because we haven't lost to any of them in 3 seasons which is the lifetime of this full management team. I think we're somewhere between 7 and 10 and that's a damn sight better than we were from 2012-2018"

Replying To brian:  "LR I accept the points you make that yes we're competitive in there against those teams around us - in the league, but when have we done it at championship level too which is the most important part of it. Championship is the proving ground and its not happened in an age. Bar Kildare (and Clare in 2019) our last victory over those teams has been in the 2019 league campaign, I accept bar Kildare it depends on draws getting to play those teams but our record hasn't been good.

Beating those teams in that 6 to 13 range consistently in league (and championship, where possible) would bring this team on in leaps. I think the ability is there for them to be top of the pile below the top 5 counties but they have to go out and show that and it starts at the weekend against Kildare.

As someone said yesterday Andy and this team needs a statement victory, as they can be quite brittle confidence wise, and a lose at the weekend could be a last straw. They've been handed some pretty damning defeats in each of Andy's years in charge 2017 Kildare in Newbridge, 2018 Longford in Longford, 2019 and 2020 Dublin, 2021 Mayo.... A defeat at the weekend could break their collective confidence. And a victory could be the makings of some of these players but they've got to go out and prove it to themselves.

On this Mayo game and we played B team v B team and it didn't matter (not aimed at you) Why are people dismissing it? That was a game that was there for the taking and the game proved our squad depth isn't there yet? And there is a huge gap between our back ups and a top sides back ups. A result in that game could've done immeasurable good for the team, it could've given them a play off v Clare who could've been an easier game than Kildare but we elected to throw our hat at it and say its a dead rubber and sure let it be. That's not acceptable from a Meath team and the man responsible for it."

Replying To LeitrimRoyal99:  "You've pretty much proved the point about beating those 6-12 teams. Armagh the last time we played them we beat them. Kildare the last 2 times. Clare the last 5 or 6, I can't remember them every beating us, beat Cork the last time we played them, I believe the last Roscommon game was 2018 and it was a draw. It's seems to me that in 2019 we beat all those teams. Since Colm Nally has come in as coach under McEntee in 2019 we've beaten these teams way more often than we've lost to them. In fact we haven't lost to any of them bar Galway in 2019 and that was a 50/50 game where we shot ourselves in the foot. You said Mayo won pulling up against us. Fair enough in 2019 they were definitely the better team and pulled away in the last 15 mins. In 2020 they won by 1 point and we handed them a goal in injury time, hardly pulling up. And 2 weeks ago it was B team vs B team for the most part so you can't judge much off that. Kerry and Dublin are better teams than us and by a lot. Even then when they didn't have full teams in the league we stayed close. I don't think we are really close and on the verge of beating top 5/6 teams consistently but I don't think that's because of management, I think it's because of desperate underage teams for years. But to say our results against those 7-13 teams aren't good is just a lie because we haven't lost to any of them in 3 seasons which is the lifetime of this full management team. I think we're somewhere between 7 and 10 and that's a damn sight better than we were from 2012-2018"