Meath bidding for a place in decider

It has in many ways been a rocky road so far but now Meath are in the National Camogie League Div 2 semi-final and who knows what can happen from here on in.

For a lengthy spell at St Brendan's Park last Saturday it didn't look like they were going to make it into the last four, but they have.

Now they face Antrim this Saturday at Inniskeen and there is every reason for believing they achieve a win. Why not?

For starters they can be confident that even when they fall behind, they have the talent, the will and the ability to hit back and rescue a situation that might look beyond them.

They know because they did it last Saturday against Kilkenny in Birr, helped by a generous allowance of injury-time that they used to full advantage with Maire Kirby getting that last-gasp goal.

There remains, however, that conundrum for the management of how many personnel to push forward and how many to leave behind to mind the house.

At times against Kilkenny the ball was played into the Meath forwards who had no chance against a well-organised defence.

They were simply out-numbered and by the time reinforcements got into their area they were invariably dispossessed, the chance gone.

Yet the three goals Meath scored was their highest tally so far in the league and they could have bagged at least one more when Jane Dolan had a shot bravely blocked by Kilkenny 'keeper Sinead Farrell.

That great threat, cutting edge, bodes well for them.

Defensively Meath looked strong. They didn't give the formidable, fast-paced Kilkenny attack many opportunities - apart of course from that one goal the Cats did get.

Maggie Randle was busy, but mostly her duties involved clearing shots from KIlkenny that fell short.

Whatever she had to do she did it with characteristic dependability.

Megan Thynne ended up with 1-1 on Saturday, extracting that impressive tally from a meagre amount of possession.

She needs to be brought more into the game for the attack to be fully effecitive.

Kristina Troy, Aedin Slattery, Grace Coleman, Leah Devine, Maeve Clince, Tracy King and the consistently impressive Aoife Minogue invariably win a considerable amount of breaking ball. At least they did on Saturday. They will have to do so again against Antrim to ensure the Meath forwards are furnished with an ample supply of ball.

The Meath team has changed little over the course of the league campaign as they recorded wins against Kildare and Dublin in the group and lost to Westmeath.

Antrim defeated Down and Derry in a three-team group and then negotiated Galway in the quarter-final last Saturday while Meath eclipsed Kilkenny.

Meath lost to Antrim in the All-Ireland Intermediate Camogie championship last November at Inniskeen by four points (2-9 to 1-16).

Now, some seven months later the mood will be more positive as everyone knows their role and manager Brendan Skehan will be looking for another big performance from his players.