Ward ready for action on Sunday

Fit again Cian Ward has denied there is a crisis of confidence in the Meath camp despite the team losing three of their four opening NFL Div 2 games with a battle to avoid relegation now looming. The 0-9 to 0-15 defeat by Donegal on Sunday is widely regarded as one of the worst displays by a Meath side in recent times. Ward feels that confidence among the panel is as robust as ever with the players fully determined to work their way through the current difficulties. "I wouldn't say that (there is a crisis of confidence) I wasn't playing on Sunday and it's always harder to judge the situation exactly from the sideline," Ward told the Meath Chronicle on Monday afternoon. "Maybe we could have done a bit better, but we just have to work on all those things that went wrong in training over the coming weeks. The Wolfe Tones player was among the Meath players on the bench despite having sustained what was thought to be a fractured cheekbone in the A FL Div 1 encounter between his club and Walterstown the previous week. Further checks revealed that Ward had not, in fact, sustained a fracture and after seeing the consultant on Friday he was deemed fit enough to engage in physical contact once again. Ward was ready and willing to play on Sunday, but wasn't called upon by the management who were perhaps reluctant to throw him into the fray because he hadn't trained last week. Ward says that it's important now that Meath players look to the immediate future and see how they can improve their level of performance starting with Kildare at Newbridge this Sunday. At the moment, he feels, a combination of factors are conspiring to undermine the team's ambitions. "I don't think it's one major thing, it's probably a combination of small things and when they go against you it can be very hard to put them right," he said. "We're not having much luck either, everything we try seems to go wrong and those things can happen sometimes in football, you just get a bad run when nothing seems to go right. The only way for us to react is to persevere, there's certainly no players in the Meath camp going to throw the towel at it. "Sometimes when things are going wrong you need the support and goodwill of the supporters and, in fairness, Meath fans have always being very good and I would encourage them to have faith. "It's still relatively early in the season and over the last couple of years our league form hasn't been where we wanted it to be. We also have our share of injuries right now. "I'm sure everyone involved would prefer that we have a good summer than a successful January, February and March. "I think people need to look at the bigger picture, the grand scheme of things, and not be rushing to judgement too much.," he concluded. Meath will play Kildare in the NFL Div 2 at Newbridge on Sunday.