Just for kicks pick two selectors that you think will be Mick's selectors for the coming season,be interesting to see if anyone ends up getting them right!

I will go..

Donal Curtis and Tommy Dowd

ziggy32001 (Meath) - Posts: 8354 - 13/08/2015 17:44:56    1769625

A.N. Other x 2 :)

GlasagusOr (Meath) - Posts: 1348 - 13/08/2015 18:19:41    1769656

I am going to say Anthony Moyles and Andy Mcentee..

To be fair to Andy Mcentee he worked with a lot of does young lads and should by right have some involvement in there future!

Yes Donal Curtis would be a favorite of mine

WhyTheLongFace (Meath) - Posts: 875 - 13/08/2015 18:42:16    1769670

To be honest ziggy, I am not sure that it matters a massive amount who the two selectors are. The three biggest problems I saw this year were:

a. a lack of fitness. I don't care how many times people tell me that the panel train hard, and give it 100% effort, and sacrifice so much etc. The simple fact is that they are not nearly as fit or strong as the Dublin, Kerry, Mayo, Donegal players. And that's for starters. Last year we were not as fit as Armagh. This year Westmeath and Tyrone were fitter than us. That's after 3 years of Mick O'Dowd being in charge and having his own trainers in. Do you think that is likely to change much in the next year? Because I don't.

b. a lack of tactical awareness or any sort of cohesive defensive plan. This has been discussed to death over the last few months, so there is really no need to go into it again. But realistically that has to come from the manager. If we have a selector who is able to radically change our tactics, and introduce a proper defensive system, then can we not just make him the manager and get rid of Mick O'Dowd altogether.

c. A lack of real leadership on the field. Unfortunately this is one of our biggest problems and is not easily rectified. a player is either leadership material or he's not. You cannot make a leader no matter how hard you try.

So to go back to your original question, you could throw the name of every Meath player for the last 25 years into a hat and pick out 2 at random and it would make no difference. For the record I would probably go with Moyles and Geraghty if they would do it, but at the end of the day, it would still be Mick O'Dowds team

anfearbeag (Meath) - Posts: 1134 - 13/08/2015 19:26:10    1769683

Moyles had a bit of a go at Micko in the Chronicle this week,so not sure about that!

ziggy32001 (Meath) - Posts: 8354 - 13/08/2015 19:42:08    1769692

Cian Ward and Joe Sheridan

bert09 (Meath) - Posts: 1790 - 13/08/2015 21:16:05    1769763

Afearbeg. I read Kevin Reilly saying anyone who thinks they not fit is mad, that most of the lads would give athletes a run for their money. He said they have problems but fitness isn't one, i found that interesting

royaldunne (Meath) - Posts: 19449 - 13/08/2015 21:36:04    1769787

Not even going to have a guess no clue, But dose anyone else think its bit strange that Mod was ratified without CB knowing who the new selectors are ?

bobkarlgees (Meath) - Posts: 1263 - 15/08/2015 11:49:36    1770561

Some of the delegates should have suggested that they defer the vote (that never happened) until MOD's selectors were known, rather than go off in a tangent asking if others should also be allowed to include themselves in the managerial debate. Of course they will mandate the new selectors at the next meeting with even less whimper of protest than before.

I'd say the county board know/knew who MOD is picking as selectors or have an idea about his intentions.

GlasagusOr (Meath) - Posts: 1348 - 15/08/2015 13:07:24    1770587

Said it before and will say it again delegates bought a pig in a poke.
Also rumour mill has it one of mickos selectors hadn't fully agreed to it and has decided against becoming a selector and mod is now frantically searching for a replacement, only in Meath, if it wasn't so serious it be funny.

royaldunne (Meath) - Posts: 19449 - 15/08/2015 15:59:45    1770661

Malachy Gibney and Ollie Melia

pim (Meath) - Posts: 119 - 15/08/2015 18:47:42    1770735

Well, it's a week on from official reappointment and a few weeks on from endorsement from county board I wonder when can we expect white smoke? Surely Mick knew several weeks ago that Trevor and Sean were quitting and would have had selectors lined up. I have no major issue with not announcing ahead of ratification though it would have been preferable to offer the full "package" to the clubs. However, some selectors may not have wanted to be named in advance should the ratification be rejected and they go with another manager.

However, I find it hard to understand why the announcement is not made now. Round 5 of SFC coming up . I assume Mick will go to games and maybe his new selectors are going. I just get the feeling that the whole thing is ambling along with an announcement at next co board meeting. That might be an unfair assessment but I just cannot understand the logic of not announcing, it would demonstrate that something is happening and that they are serious at looking for new players etc.

oldsam_newsam (Meath) - Posts: 638 - 17/08/2015 10:33:07    1771246

I read Kevin Reilly saying anyone who thinks they not fit is mad, that most of the lads would give athletes a run for their money. He said they have problems but fitness isn't one, i found that interesting

That's is interesting all right Royaldunne. If that's what he said (and I didn't see it so can't be certain), then it shows that the players are not being honest with themselves as to where they are at, and where they need to be.
I have no doubt they are fit. They are way fitter than most people, and most club players. But there is no way they are as fit as the top teams. I can see that, you can see that, the whole feckin country can see that. If the players themselves can't see that, then they are going nowhere. The level of fitness they are at now will get them a long way and win them a lot of games. But it won't win them games against the top teams, and if they want to be winning things, they need to be as fit as those teams.

Just out of curiosity, did the journalist speaking to Kevin Reilly have the sense to ask him what these other problems with the team were?

anfearbeag (Meath) - Posts: 1134 - 17/08/2015 11:19:04    1771280

Pim: I think yourself and either Rory or Martin (keep it in the family) would do a decent job, couldn't do much worse anyway!

moylagh (Meath) - Posts: 484 - 17/08/2015 12:07:26    1771319

Anfearbeag as far as I know they are comments he made on Twitter and not in an interview

shrek95 (Meath) - Posts: 77 - 17/08/2015 12:09:57    1771323

Thanks for that Shrek. That's will be why I didn't see them - no time for that Twitter nonsense. it would certainly be interesting to hear him elaborate as to what he thinks these problems are. Maybe some of his followers (have I got the right word there?) could ask him where he sees the problems. And if they do, I really hope he is not deluded enough to blame injuries.

anfearbeag (Meath) - Posts: 1134 - 17/08/2015 12:55:22    1771360

Afearbeg yeah it was that twitter nonsense where i read it.
Are we as fans that wrong

royaldunne (Meath) - Posts: 19449 - 17/08/2015 13:37:20    1771387

Afwarbeg. In the tweet he said it was inexperience that was problem not fitness.
Ive read it numerous times (the tweet) and i just don't understand it, am i and you and most other people i speak too totally wrong?? Are we seeing things that are not there? Is what we thought as tiring against wmeath Laois etc just inexperienced ? Was the way against Kildare last year just inexperienced players not knowing how to close out a game? I got to say if such a player as Kevin thinks this then are we all wrong??

royaldunne (Meath) - Posts: 19449 - 17/08/2015 15:09:03    1771479

Did he really out it down to inexperience? That's just mad. Do the young players on the panel not know that the game is 70 minutes long and that they are supposed to keep running until the end of it?

Incidently these are the ages of the players who started against Westmeath. I may be a year or two out on some, so don't jump and down if they are not all exact, but they are fairly accurate:
S Bray 35
M Burke 29
K Reilly 29
G Reilly 26
P O Rourke 26
D Tobin 25
A Tormey 25
D Keoghan 24
B Menton 24
C McGill 21
B McMahon 21
E Wallace 21
P Harnan 21
J McEntee 20
H Rooney 19

So 9 of the team are 24 or over and have been playing for the senior team for at least 3-4 years. That's about normal for most county teams nowadays. Even the younger players have been around the panel for a couple of years now. In addition Newman and Dalton were brought on, both of whom have plenty of experience. Queeny was left on the bench.
So I don't buy that inexperienced line for a minute. Anybody care to dig up the ages of the 1996 team that won the All-Ireland. Not too dissimilar to this I wouldn't have thought.
If the players are that deluded that they think their fitness levels are up to those of the top 5-6 teams in the country, and that all they are lacking is experience, then really there is no hope. The first step in tackling any problem is admitting that there is a problem in the first place. If the players and management cannot see that after three years, we are still not up to the fitness levels of Dublin, Mayo, Donegal etc., then I can't see how things are supposed to improve.

anfearbeag (Meath) - Posts: 1134 - 17/08/2015 19:05:41    1771627

Have to agree with Anfearbeag,I have been saying for some time that we are especially young compared to most teams to be honest..

ziggy32001 (Meath) - Posts: 8354 - 17/08/2015 19:21:22    1771637