Meath vs Offaly

A decent enough game. Meath's defence is looking as shaky as a game of Jenga.

They will need to find a full back for the Laois game with Kingston up there, the meath forward line tho is one of the best in the country 17 points with 17 min left is some scoring

Its not the worst game I've ever seen. Meath kicking some decent scores - especially from Cian Ward, but conceding two soft goals like that has to be a worry when there's bigger tests ahead.
Offaly have missed so many frees - they should've changed their free taker much earlier - and they wont trouble too many in the qualifiers.

GAAGenious wrote:They will need to find a full back for the Laois game with Kingston up there, the meath forward line tho is one of the best in the country 17 points with 17 min left is some scoring

Playing against a team with 14 men - shouldnt be too difficult.

If Meath were up against a decent team today they would have been sliced right open. Offaly can get forward but now there is an extra man in defence so Offaly aren't scoring now. Anyway, it is only the first game im sure Meath will improve.

Referee is a card nazi. And the new rules are ruining the game again.

Fahy is a pain in the a$$ when it comes to cards - some of the hand passing was perfectly fine and he still pulled them up on it.
Meath should've won by a lot more - they only started to dominate when Coughlan was sent off.
Colm O'Rourke raving about his beloved son now - why is he allowed doing analysis when his son and nephew were playing?

Another disgraceful refereeing display.. Meath have some class forwards they gave an exhibition on point taking today, if they could sure up the defence they could cause some trouble in Leinster.

Love the way RTE didnt kick up a fuss about that Coughlan forearm smash into the back of the Meath players head

Meath 7 - 9 Offaly - Wides

Meath 7/19 - 12/28 Offaly - Kick outs won

Meath 53% - 47% Offaly - Territory

Referee was tackled at the end

Caught the 2nd half of this. Referee seemed hell bent on ruining it as a spectacle. Meath shaped up nicely enough, a lot of big lads on their team. Leinster won't take much winning this year and they have every chance.

To be fair to Fahy, he is only implementing the rules, what can he do? He has to follow the rulebook.

The Meath defence was shaky but there's not too many more Niall McNamees in Ireland, two moments of class resulted in both goals. Worringly for Meath, our supposed best man-marker was struggling big time though until the sending-off (when Moyles dropped back in front of McNamee). I doubt Laois have any players as good as McNamee anyway but their forwards as a unit might be better. With Reilly and McGuinness to come back, we should be okay.

Our forwards did well, we had four of the most natural forwards around out there today and Farrell and Queeney on the line too. I thought Shane O'Rourke was our best player so Colm has a right to talk for now. You'd imagine it might been difficult enough for Paddy O'Rourke after what happened his club-mate last night too.

Overall a sad day for Meath football. We won but at the end of the day, football isn't the be all and end all.

Wasn't a great match by any standards. The match became farcical with the new rules. Felt sorry for the Offaly no. 10 when he was taking frees, just wasn't his day. Meath backs are very very shakey. A lot of work will need to be done before the Laois match.

Today it was hard to enjoy the match with the tragic passing of Liam Tolan casting a dark shadow over it. The last time I was in O'Moore Park before today was last year at the schools All Ireland Final when Liam was representing our school. He was a fantastic footballer and he seemed like a lovely guy but he was taken before his time. They opened up the school today so people could go over to pay their respects and I was over there for a while and everyone was devastated. It is truly horrible. RIP Liam.

Shocking news about Liam Tolan alright - RIP.

Loyal not sure you are right about it not being the refs fault cos he has to apply the letter of the law. The fact is he was wrong in as many as he was right in terms of the handpass - one which gave Meath a point. That said he was spot on with the red card. Darby had a shocker - hooking the ball every time and they should have taken him off free taking duty earlier. McNamee was carrying an injury but was still class.

Yep Harrington had a poor one and Meath still don't seem to know what to do with Moyles and only solved this when he was the extra man. I was more impressed with Meath than I have been for the last two or three seasons tbh. Up front they have real class. Cian Ward was superb, Joe is looking great and very unlucky to have his goal chalked off, Graham Reilly just needs to learn to relax a bit more - he was trying too hard. Stephen Bray was very good and Shane O'Rourke is such a clone of the Dad and if he stays fit (he deserves to) will have a great season. And Brian Farrell came on too. A fair few to come back too - looks promising.

I also found myself surprisingly impressed by the Meath forwards yesterday.

Okay, I've been going on at length about this great forward line of ours for years now but I had begun to resign myself to the fact that all its potential would go unfulfilled. Maybe now, they can start to deliver. Hopefully, EOB sticks with the same six for the next game or two:

Kenny-Joe-Bigey
Wardy-O'Rourke-Brayer

Yeah the likes of Farrell, Queeney and Peader can come in and compensate for any injuries there but a settled forward line is one of the keys to our progress too. I feel particularly sorry for Farrell but unless someone gets injured, he ain't getting back into this team.

The games are coming in nice incremental steps of toughness, Offaly-Laois-Dublin, too. I think, after yesterday, this could be our best shot at Leinster. We've been coming so close to Dublin time after time, maybe we've finally made a breakthrough. Their new team coupled with our improving team might swing it in our favour! The Laois game will help give a truer reflection of Meath's worth. We'll need McGuinness and Reily back for that though to shore up our defence with probably Juicy and King being the biggest losers from yesterday.

N.B. A round of club championship next weekend will probably only serve to bring about more injury concerns.

Loyal2TheRoyal wrote:Overall a sad day for Meath football. We won but at the end of the day, football isn't the be all and end all.

True indeed Loyal, true indeed..We've had a couple of these tragedies hereabouts and they are bad for everyone.
Commiserations from the GAA world of Leitrim and the light of heaven to the lad....RIP..

very sad news indeed - i'd say i speak for all GAA folk in Tyrone when i say we know exactly what its like to lose a member of the GAA family.

RIP and condolences to the lads family.

Loyal - at one stage yesterday Spilane said Meath were not in the top 10 (in Ireland I presume. Thought that was a bit harsh and was trying to think of 9 better teams .... but couldn't. Cork, Kerry, Dublin, maybe Galway and Kildare, Tyrone and hard to make a case for many others - Monaghan and Armagh would be on a par I reckon. So Spillane's contention that they are not in the top 10 is way off I reckon.