Meath Forum

Meath under 21s

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Replying To anfearbeag:  "Is seems to me that the management can't do right with some people, no matter what they do.
If they play a load of the minors from three years ago, lads will accuse them of focussing on players already in the system, and ignoring the late developers who never played county minor. If they leave the county minors off, lads will slate them for ignoring proven county footballers who have come up through the development system.
Play a load of lads from the top club U-21 sides, and they will be accused of ignoring players from the weaker (north meath) teams. Play the lads from Moynalty and Moylagh and Meath Hill, and they will be slated for leaving off lads who are playing senior club football.
If they leave lads on the bench who have just come back from injury, they will get stick for not playing their best 15. If they play them, they get stick for leaving off lads who played well on the team earlier in the year, and never let them down.
They just can't win with some people.
The u-21 competition can be fairly harsh - no back door, so one sub-standard performance and you are gone, That is unfortunately what happened. But considering the players that were missing, they did ok, and are a little unlucky to be out at such an early stage.

I also don't understand why people think we have a divine right to beat the likes of Westmeath at any grade, but especially at minor or U-21. Some people seem to have the attitude that if we lose to teams like that, we must have done something seriously wrong. That if we have the right coaching in place, the natural ability of the Meath footballer will prevail. But these other counties can produce good players too. And the concepts of good coaching, and fitness, and tactics are not some great secret that only the traditional counties know about, The likes of Westmeath and others can, and usually do, coach their young players well. So there is no reason, apart from history, why we should expect to always beat these other counties."
We are no longer in position to expect to beat teams just by turning up, this applies to our senior team as well, hopefully we are heading in right direction. Was not at game on Wednesday night but events seemed to conspire aganist us; missing so many players, sending off, conceeding soft goal ect. All the plans in training go out the window on a night like that. Dont agree with the idea of lack of mental strength.

seadog54 (Meath) - Posts: 2136 - 24/02/2017 20:23:49    1960331

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Replying To seadog54:  "We are no longer in position to expect to beat teams just by turning up, this applies to our senior team as well, hopefully we are heading in right direction. Was not at game on Wednesday night but events seemed to conspire aganist us; missing so many players, sending off, conceeding soft goal ect. All the plans in training go out the window on a night like that. Dont agree with the idea of lack of mental strength."
I was at it, tbh you are right. Nothing you can do on training ground to compensate for what went on. And I am not been disrespectful of Wm, however not many from county expected them to.win. nothing to do with having a superior complex, just wm u21 are poor this year. That's why it was a shock.

royaldunne (Meath) - Posts: 19449 - 24/02/2017 21:00:31    1960332

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Wm won the game -usually the better team wins the match and silly mistakes can be the difference between winning and losing. Going forward good players will learn by their mistakes and reduce the number off same. Excuses win very little and sometimes the margin of victory is so small that gthe losing team may produce better players going into senior. Now the u21's are at least as good as the teams that went out other years. The county has won 1 AI u21 since its inception and about 4 of that team ended up being good senior inter county players winning 2 Al's. Not many players from minor and U21 county teams end up as very good club players and fewer as good inter county players. There are exceptions Kerry in the 70's being one and the present Dublin team being another. Two AI's were won in the 80's and as far as I know few had Leinster u21 or minor victories. Sometimes one can over analyse. The best of luck to all the players involved going forward and hard luck on the night. Someone posted about the competition not being important, or being of little value and I just wonder has he ever played in such a competition. Player like to play in competitions and there is something special about underage competitions.

browncows (Meath) - Posts: 2342 - 25/02/2017 09:44:01    1960379

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dublin hammered westmeath tonight..

ziggy32001 (Meath) - Posts: 8354 - 01/03/2017 21:03:52    1962642

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Replying To ziggy32001:  "dublin hammered westmeath tonight.."
As expected,

Meathmen (Meath) - Posts: 73 - 01/03/2017 21:57:17    1962656

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Replying To ziggy32001:  "dublin hammered westmeath tonight.."
No surprise there. This panel for Westmeath is probably weakest in over a decade. The only shock in wm gaa circles was winning v us.

royaldunne (Meath) - Posts: 19449 - 01/03/2017 22:03:58    1962660

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Wouldn't say it was a massive shock considering meaths form in all levels in Leinster over the past few years

jackser (Meath) - Posts: 37 - 02/03/2017 06:36:00    1962692

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Replying To royaldunne:  "No surprise there. This panel for Westmeath is probably weakest in over a decade. The only shock in wm gaa circles was winning v us."
which makes losing to them all the more worse. yes we have a lot of excuses on the night but we should be putting them away like Dublin did.

Meathmen (Meath) - Posts: 73 - 02/03/2017 07:34:39    1962695

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When I saw the championship panel I knew they'd loose to wm. Just to many of last year's minor not that these players aren't good footballers just mentally and physically not ready for inter county 21s. With a management team full of ex county players surely they knew that. That leads me to believe they where planning for next year. If not it would worry me about management. While some posters will blame injuries for squad plenty of 21 lads didn't make panel who weren't injured.

username.if (Meath) - Posts: 67 - 02/03/2017 10:35:14    1962726

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Replying To Meathmen:  "which makes losing to them all the more worse. yes we have a lot of excuses on the night but we should be putting them away like Dublin did."
yeah thats the point.

ziggy32001 (Meath) - Posts: 8354 - 02/03/2017 12:38:31    1962771

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All , Kildare won the Leinster Minor in 2013 & 2015 , Longford dealt with them last night in Newbridge, that was no mean feat .
Longford were beaten by Meath in the Hastings cup final . They learnt from their mistakes , and pushed on for the Championship, theirs is a Leinster Semi Final spot against a Dublin team that Kildare dealt with in 2013 /2015 . There could be a new kid on the block , or else it could be the same old , same old .It would be nice to start breaking the city stranglehold on the football in Leinster

Another Poster made a very good point , about going from Minor directly into U21 is not good , those minor players are good players however they would not have physical / mental strength required for this level ,Scully , O Neill , Jones , Conlon and others , are all good players so I have to agree on that point . 3 years can make a big difference . I believe it was a bad decision to include so many of last years minors ( Barry was their Manger after all ) , however that decision rests with the Management . And as stated earlier , 3 Ex county players made that decision .....saying that again , I'm not sure I've seen any of them manage any Club team outside the County scene , Farrell of Nobber , Reynolds of Walterstown , do they / or have they managed teams within their own clubs , correct me if I'm wrong.
Another year wasted at U21 ( Apart from the Hastings that is ) hopefully the minors can rescue something else from the year / Summer for us

Meath_True (Meath) - Posts: 285 - 02/03/2017 16:34:08    1962878

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Replying To Meath_True:  "All , Kildare won the Leinster Minor in 2013 & 2015 , Longford dealt with them last night in Newbridge, that was no mean feat .
Longford were beaten by Meath in the Hastings cup final . They learnt from their mistakes , and pushed on for the Championship, theirs is a Leinster Semi Final spot against a Dublin team that Kildare dealt with in 2013 /2015 . There could be a new kid on the block , or else it could be the same old , same old .It would be nice to start breaking the city stranglehold on the football in Leinster

Another Poster made a very good point , about going from Minor directly into U21 is not good , those minor players are good players however they would not have physical / mental strength required for this level ,Scully , O Neill , Jones , Conlon and others , are all good players so I have to agree on that point . 3 years can make a big difference . I believe it was a bad decision to include so many of last years minors ( Barry was their Manger after all ) , however that decision rests with the Management . And as stated earlier , 3 Ex county players made that decision .....saying that again , I'm not sure I've seen any of them manage any Club team outside the County scene , Farrell of Nobber , Reynolds of Walterstown , do they / or have they managed teams within their own clubs , correct me if I'm wrong.
Another year wasted at U21 ( Apart from the Hastings that is ) hopefully the minors can rescue something else from the year / Summer for us"
We do seem to have an obsession in meath that you have to have been a great county player to be involved in management. I would not agree with that but neither would I be blaming management for U21 this year. A keeper blunder and a moment of indiscipline cost us dearly

Analyst (Meath) - Posts: 1467 - 03/03/2017 13:38:35    1963164

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Replying To Analyst:  "We do seem to have an obsession in meath that you have to have been a great county player to be involved in management. I would not agree with that but neither would I be blaming management for U21 this year. A keeper blunder and a moment of indiscipline cost us dearly"
Not sure where you get the idea that Meath have an obsession with ex county players being in management positions. Look at some of our most recent senior managers.
Andy McEntee- decent club footballer - not a county man.
Mick O'Dowd - good club footballer, on the fringes of the Meath senior team, but never a regukar county player.
Seamus McEnaney - obviously never playeed for Meath.
Eamon O'Brien - his career was before my time, but I'm not sure that he was a Meath regular.
Eamon Barry - a county player all right, but not exactly a household name as a footballer - left the Meath panel before the glory years.
Sean Boylan - a county hurler.
So in fact the only regular county players that have managed the Meath seniors are Colm Coyle, and Eamon Barry - thats hardly an obsession.

I don't have a good enough memory to go through the underage managers, but considering that I can immediately remember Andy McEntee, Sean Barry, Dudley Farrell, Paddy Carr all being in charge of Meath underage teams, I'm not sure that this "obsession" applies to underage teams either.

anfearbeag (Meath) - Posts: 1134 - 03/03/2017 15:38:40    1963214

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Replying To anfearbeag:  "Not sure where you get the idea that Meath have an obsession with ex county players being in management positions. Look at some of our most recent senior managers.
Andy McEntee- decent club footballer - not a county man.
Mick O'Dowd - good club footballer, on the fringes of the Meath senior team, but never a regukar county player.
Seamus McEnaney - obviously never playeed for Meath.
Eamon O'Brien - his career was before my time, but I'm not sure that he was a Meath regular.
Eamon Barry - a county player all right, but not exactly a household name as a footballer - left the Meath panel before the glory years.
Sean Boylan - a county hurler.
So in fact the only regular county players that have managed the Meath seniors are Colm Coyle, and Eamon Barry - thats hardly an obsession.

I don't have a good enough memory to go through the underage managers, but considering that I can immediately remember Andy McEntee, Sean Barry, Dudley Farrell, Paddy Carr all being in charge of Meath underage teams, I'm not sure that this "obsession" applies to underage teams either."
Point taken but if you go through posts on this forum it's always ex county men that are touted to do the job. Remember that involved with those mangers you named were trevor giles, brendan murphy, Graham Geraghty, cormac sullivan, donal Curtis, Gerry mc entee, finian murtagh,Tommy dowd, Colm coyle, liam harnan , sean kelly and probably a few more I can't think of. The point was that just because we had 3 ex inter County players on the line with 21's, that to me doesn't really make a difference whether the played for meath or not. Once they are doing their best without bias to clubs or relatives then I am satisfied

Analyst (Meath) - Posts: 1467 - 04/03/2017 09:57:48    1963407

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Replying To Analyst:  "Point taken but if you go through posts on this forum it's always ex county men that are touted to do the job. Remember that involved with those mangers you named were trevor giles, brendan murphy, Graham Geraghty, cormac sullivan, donal Curtis, Gerry mc entee, finian murtagh,Tommy dowd, Colm coyle, liam harnan , sean kelly and probably a few more I can't think of. The point was that just because we had 3 ex inter County players on the line with 21's, that to me doesn't really make a difference whether the played for meath or not. Once they are doing their best without bias to clubs or relatives then I am satisfied"
If you look through posts on this forum, you will see an awful lot of nonsense - I wouldn't pay too much heed to that!

Whatever anyone might like to say about the u-21 set up this year, one thing they cannot be accused of is of favouring their own clubs, or even the bigger clubs. They picked based on what they saw as their best team. Whether that was in fact the best team or not, is of course open to debate, the same as with every other team ever picked. But they certainly couldn't be accused of favouritism or bias.

anfearbeag (Meath) - Posts: 1134 - 05/03/2017 09:42:08    1963745

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Replying To anfearbeag:  "If you look through posts on this forum, you will see an awful lot of nonsense - I wouldn't pay too much heed to that!

Whatever anyone might like to say about the u-21 set up this year, one thing they cannot be accused of is of favouring their own clubs, or even the bigger clubs. They picked based on what they saw as their best team. Whether that was in fact the best team or not, is of course open to debate, the same as with every other team ever picked. But they certainly couldn't be accused of favouritism or bias."
Just to clarify I fully agree with you on that, when Callaghan was in charge of minors he had good players from lots of small junior clubs involved and the spirit and fight in that team was excellent. There are and have been others in charge of sides whose bias was blatant

Analyst (Meath) - Posts: 1467 - 05/03/2017 12:54:50    1963797

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Anybody know why the minor team thread has been shut down ?

LeitrimRoyal99 (Meath) - Posts: 1454 - 11/03/2017 20:04:30    1966222

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Replying To LeitrimRoyal99:  "Anybody know why the minor team thread has been shut down ?"
odd alright! not sure why it would be?

ziggy32001 (Meath) - Posts: 8354 - 11/03/2017 21:09:26    1966238

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Meath minor thread not removed ,it just moved out of the top 6 because there were no posts in a week.

trappatoni (Meath) - Posts: 19 - 11/03/2017 21:32:47    1966249

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Replying To trappatoni:  "Meath minor thread not removed ,it just moved out of the top 6 because there were no posts in a week."
No it has definitely been closed. No further posting allowed. No idea why - I have read through it again and there did not seem to be anything objectionable on it.

anfearbeag (Meath) - Posts: 1134 - 11/03/2017 22:28:31    1966266

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