Will Meath be wearing a different colour tomorrow??. Or just there normal green and gold shirts

Foreveraroyal (Meath) - Posts: 34 - 29/03/2019 22:24:28    2176313

Ahh I can't wait. Best wishes to Andy and all the players and back room people today. Let's win this and turn a few heads too.
Hon the royal

royaldunne (Meath) - Posts: 17035 - 30/03/2019 07:09:58    2176334

bobkarlgees (Meath) - Posts: 1192 - 30/03/2019 07:58:59    2176338

The only thing I'll say about the team is I'm delighted to see additions to the 26 Sean Reilly in particular has been raved about at training great to see his efforts been recognized with a match day panel inclusion, the team itself will be know at 4.45 today.
Hon the royal.

royaldunne (Meath) - Posts: 17035 - 30/03/2019 08:03:01    2176339

Best of luck to the boys today, this a great opportunity to see exactly how much we have improved especially with fitness, not sure if the team named will start however andy mc needs to have campion and devine on this team, devine at midfield ad campion at 11, i would leave mc mahon and brennen out, also a big day for dardis and newman, still think we could do with POR between the sticks but he made his choice, mickey will find the big and fast pace of croker very demanding but hopefully he comes up with the goods

thelutch (Meath) - Posts: 856 - 30/03/2019 11:44:58    2176365

Best of luck to the lads today, would be great to finish the league as Div2 champions and get a bit of experience in Croker. Big challenge ahead today, Donegal will be stronger than they were when we last played so we'll have to be up for this.

Htaem (Meath) - Posts: 8583 - 30/03/2019 12:26:34    2176376

royaldunne (Meath) - Posts: 17035 - 30/03/2019 12:49:55    2176381

Meath by +2

bert09 (Meath) - Posts: 1668 - 30/03/2019 16:35:46    2176405

A victory in the end for experience against naivety. I may get totally spit-roasted with thumbs down for this post but the better side lost. The dissallowed goal was a big factor. The referee wasnt good enough. Meath were naive, in the second half the fluidity left their play and you could see the way Donegal were clawing back the initiative. One word: Murphy. Without him Donegal would be less 5/6 points. They brought in the right players in the second half and like two other times in the last 3 years, they snatched it against a more positive team. This will be a learning curve for Meath. They played awesome in that first half; the first goal was classic Meath, the long ball. Many positives, my biggest worry was our substitutions in the second half: they didnt add what we've come to expect. In fact one of them looked lost at sea.

Young_gael (Meath) - Posts: 391 - 30/03/2019 18:39:53    2176422

Very good display for 55 minutes but outfoxed in the end by a brilliant player in Michael Murphy and a more experienced donegal team, newman was excellent in first half but went out of it completely in the second, his free that fell short by 6 metrees looked a tired attempt ( donegal goal came off this ) and IMO should have been replaced, mc mahon was a loss when he went off so i may eat humble pie as i didnt think he is worth his place, menton did well at midfield but it was an area we lost out on, shane mc is not a midfield player, did devine come on ? my irish not great. disappointed with result but not surprised as i expected we are only average in key areas.fitness levels much better than last year however we looked out on our feet in the last 10 minutes.

thelutch (Meath) - Posts: 856 - 30/03/2019 18:56:42    2176427

Some of the key points for me were as follows.

We needed a second goal and whilst people will talk about Newmans disallowed goal, the miss by Dardis after Newman knocked the ball down was more costly as it would have given us that little bit more of a cushion.

Our Kick out strategy was awful and easily the worst of the 4 teams playing today. We were put under immense pressure from them and only the tenacity shown when we won dirty ball prevented this part of our game from disintegrating completely. The last kick out in particular was very poor. This has to be improved and whilst the movement of the outfield players was lacking, i was not impressed by our goalkeepers efforts to find his players.

Murphy was the winning of the game for Donegal, he destroyed McGill completely(No shame in that given the quality of ball in and the quality of Murphy), and in the end our full back was not getting even close to him. Given this was a tactic we knew would be employed, we didnt seem to have any other plan to try and stop it.

Finally the Donegal subs improved their team and ours did not. It would not have been planned for Graham to come in so early but i thought McMahon was causing problems and we were weakened by him coming off.

So there is plenty to work on but at least we have a much better base to start from than in previous years.

PS I was surprised to see some people before the game express doubts about Michael Newman being able to handle Croke Park. To me he has played his best football on a pitch like Croke Park and is a great target man to fire in good quality ball to.

ROYALOPTIMIST (Meath) - Posts: 178 - 30/03/2019 19:13:58    2176435

Game management game management game management. ? Bert. Troll

Foley91 (Meath) - Posts: 339 - 30/03/2019 19:14:23    2176436

Back to Mods trademark second half collapses......totally looked lost out there. Some bad decision making at crucial times. Seasons over now.

Evernal (Meath) - Posts: 43 - 30/03/2019 19:21:06    2176443

Immense effort in first half which clearly subsided in second although to be fair to lads the sideline decisions did not help. McMahon's first half performance was the best he has played all year and was a loss. As the second half went on and we lost more and more possession the fact that Brennan was taken off was laughable considering his long balls into Newman where the only thing causing donegal any problems. Thankfully its not a playoff as such and we still go up but a chance missed considering the first half performance.

Marara (Meath) - Posts: 18 - 30/03/2019 19:28:30    2176445

I thought we played great attacking football. Dissapointed with result but delighted with the progress this year.

Poormouth (Meath) - Posts: 193 - 30/03/2019 19:32:17    2176446

nobull456 (Meath) - Posts: 841 - 30/03/2019 19:34:00    2176447

Marara (Meath) - Posts: 18 - 30/03/2019 19:35:47    2176448

nobull456 (Meath) - Posts: 841 - 30/03/2019 20:00:05    2176454

Firstly it was a performance which shows we are headed in the right direction and from a real world position we have improved greatly this year. Newman goal was correctly disallowed, he did have a super first half and we looked superb in periods of that half. We didn't score for almost 30 mins in second half and we did look out of gas after 55 mins. Gallagher for me was out of his depth, keeper not good enough, Lavin very solid and as previously stated Mc Gill is a quality full back. Shane Mc Entee not a midfielder and Dardis didn't contribute much aside from that 45 hje scored. We now need to be winning our championship matches and heading to croker for leinster final, putting in a performance and hope for decent draw where we could sneak into super 8's. I never thought i eould be saying that 6 months ago.

Analyst (Meath) - Posts: 1338 - 30/03/2019 20:01:13    2176455

When sullivan was man marked second half Newman was tied up we seemed little lost in second half. Midfield is a problem area.james McEntee didn't get his usual running in to place.kickouts are wayward best of times. But in first half we played some great football. Need prob bit of experienceaybe off bench not sure who that b Tobin probably.looked very tired at end when donegal had possession they more smart used ball and time well. What goal disallowed for??

Reco (Meath) - Posts: 419 - 30/03/2019 20:13:15    2176462