McCormack happy to have secured top tier spot
THERE was a look of relief and probably quiet satisfaction on the face of Meath boss Shane McCormack following Sunday’s Lidl NFL Division 1 victory over Cork at Páirc Tailteann.
After enjoying a whirlwind start as manager with three successive victories, including one against reigning All-Ireland champions Dublin, the Allenwood-native then endured three successive defeats with his side producing some very poor fare in the process.
Another loss would have heaped further pressure ahead of the Leinster and All-Ireland series but his side can now look forward to those challenges with pep in their step following this much improved showing.
“Look, we’re rebuilding, we’ve lost eight of the All-Ireland-winning team and the goal was to stay up in the top division and we achieved that,” said McCormack.
“We are much happier this week than we have been in the last few weeks after those three losses. We had a great start to the league campaign, three from three, but the games that we didn’t win we were very disappointed with our own performance.
“So that’s what we worked on this week, a lot of hard work by the girls and full credit to them, they kept going right to the end.”
PLENTY OF POSSESSION
Meath enjoyed plenty of possession throughout the opening half but it wasn’t reflected on the scoreboard as Cork led by the minimum at the break.
“We had a good chat with ourselves there in the dressing room at half-time,” McCormack added, “and it was just about hard work and working hard. We needed energy. It’s the one thing I said at halftime, we need to bring the energy that we did in the first three league games and credit to the girls, they did that.
“We kind of changed up the game plan this week and, thankfully, it worked well. Cork are a fantastic team, they’ve been in Division 1 for numerous years and we knew they were going to battle hard today to retain their status.
“And they did, the first half especially. But our girls ground it out and we worked extremely hard. We had a great spread of scores. There were a lot of new girls starting today and we brought seven or eight subs on as well so competition is good. We have had to bring in 10 or 11 new girls so they’re working extremely hard. That’s all you want is competition within the panel.
“We’ve trained since November three or four times a week and they are a fantastic bunch to work with. That just makes myself and the management team’s job a little bit easier.
“The Leinster championship is going to be very competitive this year with Kildare, Laois and Dublin. It’s a round-robin and we are going to have to work extremely hard over the next couple of weeks to make sure we’re ready for that.”
WE’VE LOST EIGHT OF THE ALLIRELAND-WINNING TEAM AND THE GOAL WAS TO STAY UP