Crucial few days for Meath teams
Meath GAA teams will be under pressure to perform this week with some hugely important games scheduled in both football and hurling. Championship football will feature this Wednesday evening when u-21 manager Liam Harnan takes his team to Gracefield near Portarlington to tackle their Offaly counterparts in the knock-out provincial competition. The u-21 grade is the only pure championship competition that remains, there are no second chances and Harnan and his selectors will have to concoct a winning formula to stay in the race for honours. Offaly will have some inside knowledge about the strength of Meath as they are guided by former Ballinabrackey manager Pascal Kellaghan. If Meath can carve out a victory against Offaly they will have home advantage in the quarter-final the following Wednesday 7th March against Kildare. And Kildare will be the target for senior manager Seamus McEnaney on Saturday night at Pairc Tailteann, 7.0 when Kieran McGeeney's Lilywhites arrive in Navan in search of some badly-needed NFL Div 2 points. McEnaney's side will go into this game with confidence high following victories against Monaghan and Westmeath. The game provides an ideal opportunity for Meath supporters to turn out in big numbers on Saturday night to provide much-needed vocal support and another win would leave the Royal County in a strong position ahead of the trip to Galway on Sunday week. Also travelling for a crucial game on Saturday will be the Meath hurling team. They will embark on a day trip to Ruislip and the journey alone will surely test the stamina of the players. This will also be a kind of knock-out test as a defeat will probably rule them out of contention for a place in the final. Meath were unlucky to lose to Kildare last Sunday and the pressure is now on to find a winning formula in London as they bid to get out of what is effectively the fourth tier of hurling. Meath minor football manager Andy McEntee will eventually be able to get some meaningful action for his panel of players, it currently stands at 40 and will have to be whittled down to 24 ahead of the Leinster MFC. The minor players were unable to participate in collective training during January and February due to the GAA ban on training. Meath's young footballers will travel to Darver this Friday night for the opening round of the Leinster MFL against Louth and that will be followed by the visit of Wexford on Saturday week and then a trip to Carlow on Friday 16th March to complete the qualifying phase of the competition. Meath u-21 (v Offaly) - Conor McHugh (Oldcastle); Ciaran McConnell (Bective), Brian Dillon (Navan O'Mahonys), Johnny Quigley (Kilmainham); Patrick Fox (Skryne), Ciaran Lenehan (Skryne), Darragh Maguire (Navan O'Mahonys); Bryan Menton (Donaghmore/Ashbourne), Sean Tobin (Simonstown Gaels); David Larkin (Summerhill), Mark O'Sullivan (Moynalvey), Damien Carroll (Ballinabrackey); Shane Gillespie (Navan O'Mahonys), Niall Murphy (Dunshaughlin), Padraig McKeever (Simonstown Gaels).