Skehan: 'There's a great bit of bottle and fight in this team'

MANAGER'S VIEW Skehan went through a wide range of emotions

At one stage during Sunday's game an image of Brendan Skehan popped up on the giant screen at Croke Park. He was shown smiling ruefully to himself. It was an ironic smile, not born of humour. It masked annoyance as he felt a decision that should have gone his team's way was waved in the other direction.

As he walked on the Meath manager was depicted on the screen putting a finger up to his mouth. "Yeah I was going to say something to the fourth official but I decided no, better not. 'OK just hold back there a minute,' I said to myself and walked on. It was probably the best option," he recalled outside his team's dressing room later.

During what was an engaging, captivating, enthralling game Skehan must have went through just about the full spectrum of emotions - irritation, disappointment, annoyance, joy, hope, despair, anguish and delight to name just a few.

"This team don't make it easy on themselves or me," he added with a laugh after all the drama was over, patting his chest and wiping imaginary beads of sweat from his forehead. "It was a strange game, it was classic game of two halves," he added. No-one could disagree with him on that count.

Bemusement was another emotion felt by Skehan. He was baffled and perplexed by the way his team performed in the opening half. They started like a steam train with Aoife Minogue underlining her class with a quality point. That was followed quickly by Ciara Foley's goal. Perfect. Then everything went a little crazy and off-kilter as Meath lost their way.

"I just don't know where that flatness came from," was how he put it as he sought to get to the real reason as to why his players just didn't perform for 25 minutes in that forgettable opening 30 minutes.

His players had lost to Kerry in the league final in April, they knew what awaited them on Sunday. They were ready, physically and mentally, at least that’s what the manager thought. Then it all hit the fan, the wheels almost fell off.

For lengthy spells during the game Skehan and coach Dave Dunning stood, shoulder to shoulder, on the sideline, talking, evaluating the situation, looking at options. When a team is imploding and losing their way hard decisions have to be made and just before the interval the Meath management made a big call.

Grace Coleman was called ashore and Aoibhin Lally sent on. It was harsh on Coleman who is an integral part of the team and was performing as well as many of her colleagues. Also, to take her off in the 29th minute and not wait until the interval was, in a sense, even more puzzling yet something, Skehan felt, had to be done to stem Derry's flow.

"Their centre-half-back Aoife Cassidy was causing all sorts of problems for us, she was the source of most of their attacks. We sent Aoibhin (Lally) on to try and disrupt all that and unfortunately for Grace we felt we had to make that call, she wasn't happy with it, who would be happy being taken off in an All-Ireland final, but she knows this is what happens during games."

He also clearly believed his team didn't get, especially in the opening half, much of that stuff needed to win any game, any final - luck.

"What we were trying to do was to get the ball in the forwards earlier than we did, play the game in the danger zones and we were unlucky. We had one or two chances where the ball slipped wide. Another day we might have worked scores, popped it over the bar or got a goal. I'll have to look back at the game but I'm pretty sure we missed more than they did." His hunch was right. Meath amassed 13 wides, Derry hit a meagre four.

Skehan also indicated there would be tweaks made for the replay, as a search for a renewed vigour and freshness takes another turn. "We'll be making a few more changes for the replay to shake things up a bit. We'll look at things closely this week, " he added suggesting there will be plenty of discussion with Dunning and others such as Anton O'Neill, Ed O'Riordan and Georgia O'Halloran as the quest for the McGrath Cup continues.

One of Meath's unsung heroes on Sunday was Emma O'Connell. She worked and fought and battled for every ball that came her way but she was often without back-up. Ciara Foley was another who must have felt marginalised in the opening half.

"We may give Ciara a little more support in there, we'll see how things are going. We'll go back, pick ourselves up, go back on the training pitch. We were disappointed with the first-half display, thrilled with the second. Our challenge is to find a way to play like we did in the second-half throughout the replay."

Skehan and his team now look to that game in Clones. Encouragingly for Meath they finished very strongly on Sunday, a testament to their conditioning. The more the game went on the more energetic they appeared to get.

The way the players fought back in that second-half also gives Skehan grounds for optimism although he wasn't surprised at how his troops responded to adversity. He knows what they are like.

"We gave Derry too much room at times and our heads dropped a little bit, in a situation like that it's very important to get back into it and they did. In fairness to them there's a great bit of bottle and fight in this team."

Bottle and fight. Those qualities could make all the difference as they travel to St Tiernach’s Park for the replay on Saturday.