Minor footballers ready for challenge

MEATH minor footballers endured a frustrating Saturday morning journey to Rostrevor in Co Down where they were scheduled to play the Mourne boys in the third round of the Ulster MFL.

Unfortunately, about 15 minutes before the scheduled throw-in, Cavan referee Jimmy Galligan deemed that the pitch was unplayable and declared that, in the interests of player safety, the game would not take place.

The decision was understandable in one sense, but the Rostrevor pitch didn't look any worse than the pitch at Kingscourt a fortnight ago where Meath carved out a one-point victory over hosts Cavan in the opening round of the competition.

Meath manager Pat Coyle was disappointed with Saturday's postponement. "It's a pity that the referee decided to call off the game, we could have done with it as I had selected some of the players who had missed the previous two games due to their involvement with Ashbourne CS in the All-Ireland semi-final," he stated.

"We were also hoping to get a look at some of the players who had missed out through injury, but we'll just have to settle for some training now and during the week to finalise preparations," he stated.

The Meath selectors organised a training session at a separate venue with the co-operation of the equally disappointed Down officials.

"There are a few players on the injured list including Darragh Smith from Bective who is struggling with an ankle injury, we won't know how he is until later in the week," added Coyle.

Others on the Meath casualty list at the moment include Harrison Silke, John Kelly and Damien Carroll, but the manager suggested that he was optimistic that he would have a full strength panel to select from by the end of this week.

"Hopefully everyone will recover sufficiently to be considered for selection for what is a hugely important game for Meath football, as a whole," he stated.

"I'm not going to read too much into what appears to poor Louth form at the moment, they were beaten by Antrim in the opening round of the Ulster MFL, they are in the other group, and they also lost heavily to Tyrone last week,

"But this will be a local derby and I'm not expecting an easy game, a lot of our players would have featured in games against Louth at u-14 and u-15 levels, we didn't actually beat them at u-14 level and any games between us were always close.

"This is a very big game for us, we have focussed completely on this game since we started preparing the panel last November. Simply put, this is a hugely important game and I hope we get good support at Pairc Tailteann on Saturday.

"We have to win this first round game, it will help to get minor football in Meath back on the tracks again, we are not interested in a back door, we want to win on Saturday and go on from there.

"There a loads of talented players in this panel and we have improved steadily over the last two games, against Cavan and Armagh, it's just a pity we didn't get the game against Down.

"Selecting the team for next Saturday's assignment will be a huge problem, bit it's a healthy problem because we have plenty of options for all the positions.

"We have a strong panel and they are all putting in a great effort at training, personally, I'm looking forward to the game against Louth," he concluded.

Louth were in action in the Ulster MFL on Saturday and they slumped to their third successive defeat when they were beaten Fermanagh.

Last year Louth made it to the Leinster MFC semi-final where they were beaten by Carlow and some players remain from that panel.

Louth manager Johnny McDonnell has worked with the current squad of players sine the u-14 grade and the St Fechin's clubman will be hoping for an improved performance on Saturday.