I dont know about others on here but personally I think that in relation to the Meath senior team, the standard of club football has to improve dramatically in the county. Like I might be wrong in saying this but club championship in Meath is nowhere near as decent in quality as other counties, the county teams that are winning things are the same counties producing club teams in the All-Ireland club competition and maybe by making club football interesting and competitive (knock out,make league bigger and games more often) can only enhance getting better all round footballers in the county. Anyone feel the same or have other views on the matter?

Put_It_Up1 (Meath) - Posts: 3 - 28/08/2010 19:57:27    758768

I would agree with you that the standard is not overly great. However the reason for this is that the talent in Meath is split pretty evenly across the county, apart from a small nucleas in Navan. If you look at other counties, they will have 2/3 large clubs who may contribute 10/12 of the county team. We have never had that situation in Meath. I think there was one all-ireland where all starting 15 were from different clubs (off hand I forget the year).

Also, if you look at Dublin, their clubs are more soccer like when it comes to transfers in that they bring in players who are working in Dublin but from down the country. I hear Parnells are now the Man City of Dublin football. Being an amateur organisation, I have no idea how these amateur clubs can attract country players, but thats for another string.

So while the overall standard is not great (ask anyone who was at D/B v Rathkenny last week) I think this is due to the talent being spread across the county.

DowdtoFoleyGoal (Meath) - Posts: 292 - 29/08/2010 09:38:21    758898

Yeah I'd agree with dowdtofoleygoal.

The Meath sfc is pretty competitive aswell compared to others.
The likes of cross winning every year in Armagh & the geals in Cavan cannot be classed as a good reflection on the overall standard in the county. Likewise on Donegal where people say club football is of a very high quality, it's still tge same four in tge semis every year with eunans getting stringer every year.
In Dublin it's near impossible to make a link between club & county due to the amount of non dubs playing in it.

It's very easy to say that the standard is bad based on a cuple of poor games you've attended & compared against various county finals you might watch on tg4.

Jinxie (Meath) - Posts: 6348 - 29/08/2010 13:08:33    759009

If club football is to improve the county setup needs to change drastically. In Meath if a player makes the county setup it normally disimproves the player as if they don't make the starting team they must sit on the the bench for the duration of the season getting little or no game time time. Also they are not allowed play club league games so they could possibly go 6 or 7 weeks without any game time. So by the time a club championship weekend rolls around most clubs best players are extremely rusty and lack match practice which brings the level of the games down. Another side to this is that clubs who produce a number of county players such o'mahonys suffer in the league because they have so many on the county panel which is completely unfair.

dona (Meath) - Posts: 27 - 29/08/2010 13:34:58    759028

Ye i would agree with yous lads,but maybe i didnt put accross exactly what im thinking,the standard does need to improve and it could all be down to the structures within the county to league and championship football.I personally feel that to bring on players and improve on the spread of the players, clubs need to be playing games on a more regular basis,it would surely bring on so many more players, and at the end of the day that surely would benefit the county team ?

Put_It_Up1 (Meath) - Posts: 3 - 29/08/2010 14:02:19    759041

Improving the quality on display at adult level starts at underage.
Improve the structure there & get more youngsters playing on a much more regular basis.

Jinxie (Meath) - Posts: 6348 - 29/08/2010 14:31:16    759063

I agrre with Jinxie that more things do need to be done at under age level, to bring more footballers through but , I actually think in the last 4 or 5 years teams are more capable of competing against teams like kilmacud crokes, st vincents, and to be fair in recent years the meath SFC winners have put it up to teams in the all ireland club championships and in the last 3 years I think that twice we've being beaten by the by the eventaul winners of the All Ireland Club.

I actually think we have a number of footballers throughout the county who could make the grade at intercounty level if we could just get the mangement that these players need we could bridge the gap to compete with the very best, So for me its not talent that the problem is its just finding a setup which can get these players willing to put in the work to get them up to a level of fitness where kildare, down, cork, tyrone, dublin and even louth are at the moment and until this happens, we're going to get beaten every time we meet teams like these

winneralrite (Meath) - Posts: 16 - 29/08/2010 15:34:11    759121

29/08/2010 14:31:16
Jinxie
County: Meath
Posts: 2862

759063
Improving the quality on display at adult level starts at underage.
Improve the structure there & get more youngsters playing on a much more regular basis.

Jinxie you talk the talk but do you walk the walk? Are you involved in coaching underage teams in your own beloved Oldcastle?

premiumlevel (Meath) - Posts: 62 - 29/08/2010 17:24:27    759209

PremiumLevel

What is the relevance of your post to the topic of the thread?

Do you actually have an opinion on this subject or are you even capable of forming your own opinion on anything bar Oldcastle?
Your admiration for Oldcastle is noteable with your constant reference & remarks regarding them.

However, to answer your question.
Yes I have regularly helped out with underage teams in the club over the years & will again.

However I dont see what that has to do with the thread in question? Your obbsesion with turning everything into derogatory slaging match towards either Oldcastle or in this case, myself, shows that your agenda on here is far from the discussion of Footballing matters in Meath.

Im just not sure which is worst, you for attempting to destroy threads, or admin for assisting you in it.

Jinxie (Meath) - Posts: 6348 - 29/08/2010 18:29:29    759338

There could be a case for a development squad to be put in place. Take the next 20/30 players behind the senior interocunty squad, see if they are physically able for intercounty and bring them together for a few training sessions with the u-21s. The 10 fringe players on senior intercounty 30 could also partake. Benefits being;
- management get to see who is coming up and be able top guage them against similiar players which may only happpen in 2/3 club matches a year
- we get to see if the fringe players deserve their places on the squad or if there are better out there.
- players get to try themselves at a slightly higher level.

This message board has been full of this person or that person should be in the squad...well bring those 20/30 players together and if 5 players come out of the porcess, it would be a success.

I know there are various trials, however once again, these are like exams and do not necessarily bring a player through. Not sure how it would work with the required rest period as well or if the "second" panel would train the same evenings. I'm sure there would be a few weaker counties like Leitrim, Longford, Louth etc whom would be glad to get a challenge game against a Meath second string.

DowdtoFoleyGoal (Meath) - Posts: 292 - 29/08/2010 21:24:00    759565

Junior Club football in the county is very strong. One only has to look at the Leinster Junior football Championship over the past eight years. Meath Clubs have appeared in 7 out of the 8 finals winning 6. Longwood, Moynalvey and Clann na Gael have brought the title back to the county over the past three years. Furthemore Wolfe Tones and Nobber went on to win the All-Ireland in 2002 and 2003 respectively.
At Intermediate level Wolfe Tones won the Leinster in 2004, while Donaghmore-Ashbourne and St. Ultans appeared in the final in 2007 and 2008 respectively.
At senior level meath clubs have not fared out as well as at Junior and intermediate grade. Dunshaughlin won in 2003 while Skryne appeared in the final in 2005. Last year Senchalstown were well beaten by PortLaoise, however, they played the final a week before this game, and then the final replay on the thurs I think. So a fresh Senchalstown side would more than likely put it up to PortLaoise.

mrazteca (Meath) - Posts: 25 - 29/08/2010 21:28:00    759571

Mrazteca

Very good points there. And if I remember correctly, a cuple of years ago seneschalstown also brought st vincents to a replay & were very unlucky to lose that one. Vincents won Leinster after that.

Jinxie (Meath) - Posts: 6348 - 29/08/2010 21:44:47    759599

To make Senior Football stronger in the county
- got back to four team groups in Senior Championship. It was a far more cut throat championship back in the day. Mediocre teams are able to survive in 6 team groups because they'll pick up points along the way somewhere. Reducing the Senior to 16 would get rid of a couple of teams who are no better than intermediate at best. Four team groups led to far more competitive games than we see these days
- A senior development squad would kill the clubs. Its hard enough to cope with players away with the county as it is. If the Meath manager doesn't know who the strongest 30-35 footballers in the county are, he shouldn't be the Meath manager. NOM had 6-8 players involved in Meath last year, they got relagated to Div 2. Imagine anoth 4 or 5 in a development squad on top of that.

CommitteeeeMan (Meath) - Posts: 153 - 30/08/2010 10:02:16    759707

CopmmitteeMan- I take your point on the development squad weakening club teams however I would propose that the development squad would be run in the off season be that around now or in the early new year such that if we found any gems, they could be brought into the panel by Feb or March.

As I say, not sure if this would work, given the ban on intercounty training at certain times. However it would help as a stepping stone from club to county for those players who have gone past the u-21 grade. The preference would be for players to progress directly from minor to u-21, however some times players may slip through.

DowdtoFoleyGoal (Meath) - Posts: 292 - 30/08/2010 11:18:44    759819

DowdtoFoleyGoal

not a bad point but then do these players face potential burnout, playing all year with the club, then into the development squad, then if they are good enough onto the meath panal and then back to their clubs again without a break, i agree something needs to be done but i dont think the development squad is the answer.

hillman2 (Meath) - Posts: 102 - 30/08/2010 11:32:22    759846

DowdtoFoleyGoal

Valid point there alright but is there the same incentive there at the end of a season for players to start into this over the winter months, after giving up the year with their club already.
If they were to see some of the lads like McGill & a few others who didn't get much time with the county, does it not seem like a very slim chance to come through a block of 20/30 other players just to get to where McGill was & possibly still have nothing to show for it?

Jinxie (Meath) - Posts: 6348 - 30/08/2010 11:37:29    759861

Agree standards are falling in the county but the main reason is that other sports have taken many of our most talented potential players. Until our competitions are properly organised at club level with a proper timetable we will continue to lose many of our young talent to better organised sports.

Poormouth (Meath) - Posts: 204 - 30/08/2010 12:43:29    759998

"The standard of club football is poor". Its a strange statement. To state something like that you have to complete the sentence. ie. Compaerd too.... what? Club football in other counties? Club football in our own county, ten twenty thirty years ago? No one has clarified this at all on any comment i read on the thread. Most points sound like talk you hear in a pub and not from true supporters of the game as a whole.

Our record for our clubs as they enter the provincial tournements is pretty good when you look back over the last decade. In Senior, Dunshaughlin flew the flag for us for a long time and we have had sporadic good performances here and there. Year in year out though the timing has been wrong for us though. Our senior champions would celebrate a bit too hard(understnadably) for a week and find that they have to play a team that has three weeks training under them and a spell on the dry. Our Inter and Junior teams are constantly winning Leinster and challenging for all irelands. The whole point here is that our clubs win more than there fair ratios compared to any other counties clubs within the provincial structure and are no worse and probably better than most which would in my opinion imply a a better standard.

The argument that club football used to be stronger years ago is rubbish. I have been watching teams play since the mid eighties as a young pup when the O Mahonies and Skryne were winning championships all over the place. The standard was atrocious. The simple skills were beyond the majority of the so called good players back then. Dirtiness was a virtue. The top teams nowadays like Seneshalstown and Wolfe Tones would kick the living daylights out of the top club teams of twenty thirty years ago, especiaklly the north meath teams who littered senior at the time. The fitness levels, skill, pace and size of the players nowadays towers over the levels of even ten years ago. The whole point here is that the standard has improved not disimproved.

Thirdly, Meath has such a plethora of clubs that we have nearly fifteen different clubs represented on our county panel. This is simlar to Kerry Dublin Tyrone Cork....... QED.

All in all i think club football is in robust health in Meath and a small improvement in fortunes of the county team and you would see the naysayers in this thread change their tune rapidly. This is only my opinion.

James T (Meath) - Posts: 611 - 30/08/2010 16:12:11    760360

The facts dont lie. Meath clubs have four LCSFC to our name and zero All Irelands since 1970. Dublin clubs are always going to have the upper hand with the country lads that are living in Dublin playing for them. They have 16 LCSFC to there name. Loais clubs have 7 and Carlow six. In the recent past Dunshauighlan are the last winners in 02 with Skryne losing the final in 04. Since then we havent competed. Bad organisation can be blamed for last year with Sentown having to play the 3 or 4 days after lifting Keegan. The All IRELAND FEile DIV 1 has never been won by a Meath club either and i dont think the Leinster minor club that Eir og[carlow] have hosted in the last few years has been won by a Meath team either. There is a problem and there is no point denying it. We need to improve our underage structure at county and club level.

Saintfootball (Meath) - Posts: 29 - 30/08/2010 18:08:32    760558

James T - some of what you have posted about past teams is utter nonsense. The present club teams have no consistancy (just like our county team) as most recent winners have been beaten once if not twice in the championship- you do not win too much with lack of consistancy. I think there are enough good footballers in the county given the right players and management (someone like G.McE comes to mind).

Saintfootball - D/A won the leinster minor 2-3 years ago

browncows (Meath) - Posts: 2342 - 30/08/2010 19:10:25    760625