We will leave no stone unturned to give us best chance in Meath
WE WON’T TRAIN NOW UNTIL WEDNESDAY BUT IN BETWEEN THIS, PLAYERS AND MANAGEMENT WILL ANALYSE ALL ASPECTS OF THE ANTRIM GAME. WE KNOW IT WILL BE TOUGH IN PÁIRC TÁILTEANN.
A good performance secured a victory for us and we live to fight another day.
That’s exactly what the management team got from our men on Saturday evening.
Scoring 22 points and winning the majority of individual battles around the park is very pleasing for us as a group.
Of course conceding three goals is something we have to work on and that we will over the next two weeks.
All we can ask for from our players is for a performance and if you get that you know you have a great chance of being victorious.
If I’m honest this panel has performed in every game this year apart from against Offaly in the National Football League.
We lost to Antrim and Longford because we didn’t convert frees that we worked so hard to earn.
Between those two games we missed 16 frees and lost by one point and two points.
The key indicators for us were that we created enough opportunities to win a game and set up well in defence to limit the opposition.
We have done that, even in games we lost, except for that disappointing performance against Offaly. So that has always been positive.
We continued the trend of doing that in the League in the Championship opener against a fancied New York, who we beat by eight points and although we lost to Mayo, we did create enough chances and we did limit them, but were unlucky with decisions from the officials which you have no control over.
Mayo certainly got the rub of the green that day and against Galway they got the opposite.
In fairness these decisions probably balance out over the year. I hope so.
So Antrim were next and we came away with a second Championship win.
We want to make that three against Meath though we know it will be tough in Páirc Táilteann.
But our target is a place in the last eight and we make no apologies for that. so obviously we have to keep winning to reach that goal. Please God we do and then we will gladly reassess our targets.
We won’t train now until Wednesday but in between this, players and management will analyse all aspects of the Antrim game.
So by Wednesday when we get together we should be willing and ready for our next challenge.
At this stage the management will also have had a look at Meath and we will prepare accordingly.
We will train again on Friday evening and work together for a full day on Saturday.
We want to leave no stone unturned, to give ourselves the best chance to perform.
On the injury front, Johnny Kelly has an issue with his calf muscle and we will monitor him as the week goes on.
The news is not so good for Eoin McHugh, who definitely has a tear in his calf muscle but we won’t know the extent until we get a scan this week.
Cathal Henry is still out with a broken bone in his hand.
But on the plus side, Criostóir Davey, David Kelly and Cian Breheny should be returning to training next week.