Replying To meath1967: "Under Robbie Brennan this year, in 2026 Meath has had the best results achieved by a senior mens team in over a quarter of a century. So good to see this & credit where credit is due to players, Robbie, Conor and Shane.
Success to date has been achieved with a free flowing approach which has enabled some players to flourish further & basically winning by scoring more than the opposing team on the day.
Careless turnovers up the field & defensive shortcomings were identified last year as well as during this years League with Aaron Kernan being appointed as defensive coach to address these defensive issues.
There is now a 5 week window to address these [defense</div> shortcomings after being badly caught cold by Westmeath last Sunday on both sides of the line.
Surgery is required, necessary and apparent if this Meath team is to improve further. I look forward to the return of Costelloe, Jones and Grey to full fitness to increase personnel options. I think if our players/team collectively play less 'Nice', with more of an edge & become more calculating as a unit, results can improve further.
Winning beats the hell out of freedom of expression in a game every time.
So come on Aaron Kiernan, prove your worth to enable this good team becoming a great team.
5 weeks, no bs, it can be done & we will be forever in your debt."
I don't feel this is right to say. Are people forgetting Meath were promoted to Division 1 a few years ago, for the first time in a long time - with a team that had far less underage success and pedigree and also reached the Super 8's. They were very impressive in that league. This year, they have been lucky at best in a few matches to fall over the line. My point is this defeat was not a huge surprise and I think that the hype may be getting a bit carried away. Hopefully they use this break to ground themselves and go out and get a win and see if they too can reach the last 8 but on current form, I wouldn't be overly confident."]Don't agree with the assessment that they were lucky in a few matches to fall over the line - they were the better team in all the games they won and should have won more comfortably if they hadn't hit a few flat spots. There's a lot of recency bias in GAA analysis. Roscommon are suddenly All-Ireland contenders - we hammered them in the league last year and drew with them in The Hyde. We topped our group and made it to the last 4, they finished bottom of our group. Now, they have clearly improved this year but so have we as evidenced by getting promotion to Div 1. We got caught cold by Westmeath but that doesn't suddenly make us way off Roscommon's level. We're behind Kerry, Donegal and Armagh but I'd fancy us to beat any other team in the country on our day and I think we'll still have a big say in the championship this year. And if we don't hit the heights this year, next year will be better and the year after will be better again. We have plenty of underage talent coming through to be fighting for silverware consistently over the next decade.