The problem what I see about modern defensive systems is that apart from the teams who know how to play within it mainly Donegal , is that it is making defenders sloppy and have bad positional sense.
In the old traditional way you marked your man and tried to keep him scoreless and if he got a score it was your responsibility. But now if you have 10 defenders back and everyone is expecting someone else to pick up a runner or mark a man.. Someone still has to mark the forwards. Our defensive set up was very poor against Westmeath. We are falling between the gap of man marking and the new system and in the end we are doing neither. It is just so infuriating to see defenders standing on the wrong side of their men or having players marking space and when the ball is going in a different direction and they are totally out of the game.. Space never scored a goal. One of the first things you are thought as a defender is always keep goal side of your man. That still rings true today no matter what system you play. I just think our defenders are not really sure what they are doing and have no real structure. Which management are totally responsible for. When Jimmy Mcguinness started with Donegal he worked on the defense first then the attack. We have always had forwards who can do damage but when our defense is all over the place how can we possibly achieve anything.

MeathNo3 (Meath) - Posts: 23 - 03/07/2015 11:12:32    1746883

The thing is,most of the elite counties have defensive/forwards coaches etc,but we don't!

ziggy32001 (Meath) - Posts: 8354 - 03/07/2015 13:12:08    1746986

We didn't need a defensive system last week....we lads tracking runners, it was westmeath we played, and were ten points up against...ya track the half backs and midfielders and we're looking forward to a Leinster final. Biggy has been tracking all year but he went off, tormey doesn't track at all from half forward so whoever thought he could play midfield needs there heads read. Flanagan or Rooney don't,harnan didnt.....all westmeath attacks came from that halfbackline/midfield area

southmeathgael (Meath) - Posts: 888 - 03/07/2015 13:44:10    1747003

Very True. A manager does not have to be an expert in everything but needs to know his limitations and get the experts in the specific area to come and do that job. Its very obvious that defensively MoD is out of his depth but surely he could have got someone in to over see that part.

MeathNo3 (Meath) - Posts: 23 - 03/07/2015 13:47:21    1747006

Meathno3

the problem is,that we should have done that at the end of last season and many said it was a must...

ziggy32001 (Meath) - Posts: 8354 - 03/07/2015 14:20:12    1747036

I just hope we are not talking about it at the end of next season.

MeathNo3 (Meath) - Posts: 23 - 03/07/2015 14:29:29    1747046

As things stand we will be talking about it, hard to see anything changing under present management.

seadog54 (Meath) - Posts: 2142 - 03/07/2015 20:27:19    1747217

I was at one of the coaching workshops and one of the present management team was asked what system are meath goin to play .he said and I quote that is the question. This was last year now I thought he just been clever not answering this so I wondered but thought no way he serious, but looking on what been playing this year we've had a mix of all sorts.which is not bad thing if your playing different teams. But if this the case we should have different plans when teams again us play certain ways.will support them to the last anyway but it not looking good at moment.

Reco (Meath) - Posts: 419 - 04/07/2015 20:08:24    1747494