Meath Forum

How Do We Improve Meath Inter County Hurling?

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Replying To CastleBravo:  "I was thinking that too. Are we proposing to disband our leagues and form a new one with Westmeath? Can't see why Westmeath would want to give up their league to help us out.

Or are we disbanding our leagues and moving into the Westmeath/Dublin system entirely? More doable but I'm not sure how desirable it is to outsource our entire league to another county.

Talk of Meath clubs playing with Na Fianna, Lucan Sarsfields or St. Brigids is laughable considering Bray Emmets (who've beaten our Senior champions in 2 of the last 3 seasons) are near the bottom of Dublin's Division 3."
I think laughable is a stretch. Na Fianna, Lucan, Boden and a few others are obviously out of reach, but I can't see why the better Meath clubs shouldn't be aiming to get to Brigids, Castleknock, Plunketts, Faughs, Judes etc level.
Dublin structure wouldn't allow Meath clubs in, but any combination of a LH, WH, MH and Kildare mix is worth exploring, if practically possible!
One issue at the moment is teams are continuously playing the same teams, be it cup, league then champo. I wouldn't dispand our own league, but introduce one somewhere that would provide a new challenge. If that lead to an amalgation of two counties leagues, then so be it.
As said previously, stagnation will ultimately leave us lagging even further behind so something new is required.
Naas play in Kilkenny and Dublin leagues at different underage stages, I assume they still play in their Kildare structure?
Bray are where they are because they generally do not have half their panel during the Dublin league due to Wicklow county commitment (hurling and football). So their ultimate goal there is to get meaningful competitve games into their squad when the hurling programme in Wicklow is on a down-low. If they had a full panel playing all year round they would certainly be competing a lot higher up. You generally see their results improve drastically towards the end of each league season

hurlingcowboy101 (Meath) - Posts: 31 - 11/06/2025 09:29:47    2616589

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Replying To CastleBravo:  "I was thinking that too. Are we proposing to disband our leagues and form a new one with Westmeath? Can't see why Westmeath would want to give up their league to help us out.

Or are we disbanding our leagues and moving into the Westmeath/Dublin system entirely? More doable but I'm not sure how desirable it is to outsource our entire league to another county.

Talk of Meath clubs playing with Na Fianna, Lucan Sarsfields or St. Brigids is laughable considering Bray Emmets (who've beaten our Senior champions in 2 of the last 3 seasons) are near the bottom of Dublin's Division 3."
Catlepollard beat the KK Senior champs Thomastown in last years Leinster club SHC. Clonkill took Ballyboden to extra time a few years ago too.

begining (UK) - Posts: 323 - 11/06/2025 09:57:43    2616592

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Replying To begining:  "Catlepollard beat the KK Senior champs Thomastown in last years Leinster club SHC. Clonkill took Ballyboden to extra time a few years ago too."
Castletown Geoghehan beat Thomastown and Raharney lost by a point to Oulart the Ballagh in a Leinster semi final.If you want to play Westmeath clubs in league matches,Meath need simply to coordinate your football week hurling week with Westmeath and reach an agreement where all WH clubs will be involved.If we could run Leinster leagues it shouldn't be beyond us to run a cross border league.

jobber (Westmeath) - Posts: 1730 - 11/06/2025 18:12:20    2616756

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Not sure it's about disbanding county league systems but rather more cross county partnerships to grow the skill base, advance the level of hurling and attract more hurlers in geographical areas.

It can work with all neighbouring counties where you get 6 or 8 clubs sharing skill shops, coaching, closed challenge games of mixed teams purely to advance the sport.

Royalio11 (Meath) - Posts: 799 - 11/06/2025 23:47:49    2616810

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Unfortunately as much as it is entertaining reading the last few posts even though it makes sense to possibly join up with other counties for the betterment of our own standards, the fact still remains that the people who control Meath hurling(aul club heads) would die roaring before that happens. They cant even agree that half the clubs in senior are not senior grade clubs.

Until all the hurling clubs in Meath get realistic about their standards, and the championships get graded into proper cut throat setups, then nothing will improve. Imagine asking Naas or any of the Dub clubs from Div 3 up to waste a days travel to come to Meath to play one of our Senior B clubs. No offence but we wouldn't keep it pucked out to them.
IMO we have got to raise the standards internally first and bite the bullet and be realistic about our own setup.

Another huge blocker to improvement is the standard of referee's although this seems to be a nationwide problem.

From a county perspective we are failing the youth by using in county coach's/legends of the past. If our county teams are to do better we need our underage teams to be playing in the top comps and being coached by ex players with liam McCarthy experience and brought through as a group like the u21 footballers.

The Talent is there in Meath but its not being nurtured. Our senior team is evident of that as we have been relying heavily on the same 6 lads now for the past decade and no one has come close to competing with them for a spot and the ones who could wont commit as they know the standard/setup is pox.

Irish_downunder (Meath) - Posts: 652 - 12/06/2025 07:14:03    2616824

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Replying To begining:  "Catlepollard beat the KK Senior champs Thomastown in last years Leinster club SHC. Clonkill took Ballyboden to extra time a few years ago too."
And....?

If anything that strengthens my point; we're talking about joining the Westmeath league because we're desperate. But what's in it for Westmeath to open up their league to a standard of team worse than what they have themselves?

CastleBravo (Meath) - Posts: 1685 - 13/06/2025 15:33:27    2617221

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