Sluggish Royals see off Sligo in the end
SLIGO manager Niall Carew lamented missed opportunities and the loss of key players as he reflected on his sides exit from the championship at Pairc Tailteann last Saturday evening.
The Kildare native said he felt confident going into the game but thought one of the main differences was his sides failure to take scoring chances when the opportunities arose.
‘We knew coming down, we were playing very well all year, we were competing very well. Meath are a top division two team we knew that coming in. They had great wins against Galway and Derry, and they are very formidable at home as well. They will kick on but we alway knew we had the players to compete but when you lose two or three of your key players - but saying that we have to take our chances.
‘Normally we are very clinical but you can say that is good Meath pressure as well so you have to give them credit for that. They set up completely different than they did all year and that game will bring on.
‘I wasn’t surprised how defensive Meath were after the last two games, they shipped big scores and it it just the way the game has gone, we even seen it with Dublin last week, they had 13 and 14 players behind the ball as well. I know they had a big margin of victory but that is the way the game has gone.
‘You have to work hard and try and get your shape when you have your period of dominance. You have to get behind the ball and get in the tackles because you get destroyed if you don’t.’
According to Carew the loss of centre back Brendan Egan to a black card and the experienced Charlie Harrison to injury proved a major blow.
‘I don’t think Meath would have got in as easy for the scores,’ Carew continued. ‘Brendan holds centre back very well for us and obviously Charlie is a very good man marker but in saying that I think it was down to the four or five chances that we created and didn’t take.
‘Pat Hughes got three in a row and didn’t take any of them. We got no free in the second half and Meath got three which kept the whole thing ticking over.
‘I suppose when there is only two points in it at the end we should have been a little cuter going down for the frees and that could have been the difference.’
‘I don’t think we are very far away but at the same time we are very disappointed because we knew that game was there for us, we had a great chance but unfortunately we didn’t take it.’
Regarding the late goal chance Carew said his side just didn’t get the rub of the green.
‘I thought it was going in, normally those would trickle in for you if the luck was with you. As with any management team what you want is have your team to compete at this level and create enough chances to win the game. And we did that but they didn’t go over for us. Normally we would be very clinical up front and we probably got the wrong men on the ball at times, we needed Niall Murphy on the ball a bit more but hats off to Meath they had their homework done and defended very well and made life very difficult for us.’