Bemused McEntee can’t explain below-par Meath performance
THERE was naturally a sombre mood in the Meath dressing-room following Sunday’s defeat and manager Andy McEntee didn’t have the reasons for such a disappointing performance from his troops.
‘I don’t understand the reasoning behind a performance like that,’ a stunned-looking McEntee said.
‘Lads have worked extremely hard, they have put in a huge effort, so that is the hard bit to take for them as well. I’d ask the question, why do all this work and then not perform on the day, that is the conundrum,’ McEntee continued.
The Meath boss admitted the levels of intensity weren’t where they should have been, but he also had a go at referee Sean Hurson (Tyrone) following the incident that resulted in the sending-off of his son Shane on 56 minutes.
‘I have no idea why our player was sent off, no idea. I know the whole thing came from what looked like a blatant foul on Graham Reilly, yet he gave the free the other way. I was following the ball, so I didn’t see what happened,’ he fumed.
‘What is the point in even talking about referees? I don’t understand. The whole thing comes from the blatant foul on Graham Reilly. It should have been a free in, he gives a free out, they go up and get a score and we have a man sent off. That is some turning point in any game. There is just no point in talking about referees.
‘Regardless of preparations and regardless of everything else, we didn’t perform to the levels we expected to and that is the bottom line.
‘It was 0-7 each at half-time, we had three gilt-edge goal chances and missed them all, but if we had scored them then the game was over. We weren’t accurate enough and we didn’t inject enough pace into the game which was what we needed to do to really hurt them.
‘That first 15 minutes of the second half was the killer period. We never seemed to get the response we wanted in that spell.
‘I have to give credit to Longford. They were well organised and well drilled, but when you get three goal chances at this level you have to take them.
‘There was a bit of a breeze out there and we probably had the advantage of it in the second half and being level at half-time we were right in the game, but Longford produced that period in the first 10 to 15 minutes of the second half and they were better than us.’