‘We just need to tidy up our game’

Ladies manager Freeman on the art of putting theory into practise

The best laid plans and all that. Football can be a funny old game in the way how teams can plan for weeks for a game. They can have meetings, talks, decide on tactics, prepare as best as they possibly can for a game, but when the day arrives for the big game all that goes out the window.

Scenarios that were set up don't quite work out as envisaged on the training pitch. Well-rehearsed moves fall victim of stubborn opponents or self-inflicted, unforced errors.

It seemed to be bit like that for Meath on Sunday. At least that's the impression Wayne Freeman gave as he spoke to members of the media on the Grangegodden pitch after Sunday's defeat to Galway.

This was a big day for Freeman and his charges. It was his first competitive outing as the new Meath manager and his team's first stop-off on the journey in this year's National League Div 1 campaign, with some very difficult assignments to come including a game against Dublin in Stamullen next Monday, so a victory would have been very nice indeed thank you very much.

Then the game started and pesky, unco-operative reality began to have a say. Moves that worked with a slickness and efficiency in training became bogged down in the face of Galway's defensive awkwardness. Plans to contain the Westerners' attack floundered as the team in maroon found space and accuracy - enough at least to build up a 0-9 to 0-4 interval lead. Then they pushed on from there to win.

Freeman was amazingly philosophical about it all afterwards. At 31-years-old, the Kildare man is perhaps the youngest manager of a senior inter-county team in the country and seems unfazed even after days like his team endured on Sunday when hours of preparation unravelled in the face of the storm whipped up by their opponents.

"There were a couple of plans that we wanted to execute but didn't which is disappointing and they have been going very well for us in pre-season," said the new Meath boss.

"Maybe it was built up a little bit, it was the National League, our first competitive game of the year but we'll take a look at it as a team and try to improve on things.

"It's actually funny because the attacking side of our game is something we are really happy with over the last four or five weeks so it could be the day that's in it.

"It didn't quite click for us today, Galway are a well-prepared side, Daniel (manager Daniel Moynihan) has been with them three years, they haven't changed in the way they set up or play."

Freeman talked specificially about the problems his team encountered with the "transition" of the ball from defence to attack, from one player to another, identified by him as right up there.

"We had too many turnovers and those turnovers led directly to scores on the back end of it, that was our biggest issue today. They were always going to punish you when you give them the type of ball we did." Later he talked about how "70 per cent of their scores came from turnovers."

In a chat with the Meath Chronicle in the lead up to Sunday's game Freeman had pointed out how his team had just about the toughest start to their league campaign the fixtures' fixers could have conjured up as they take on Galway, Kerry and Dublin.

Galway and Kerry were beaten semi-finalists in last year's All-Ireland SFC while, or course, Dublin defeated Meath in the final. Of the three league fixtures Galway could have been deemed the "easiest" of the games - but it proved anything but easy - and now the Dubs await next Monday in Stamullen.

The task for Freeman is to rebuild the team while ensuring that they stay in the top flight. Somehow finding that balance. It's a big task. To add another component to the mix is that this season 12 new rules have been added to the ladies games including the 'three up, three back' and the 'tap and go' that has proved so successful in the men's game. It's how a team adapts to the new laws that will go a long way to determining how a team fares out in the league. Freeman suggested Meath have still some way to go in that regard.

"We had two or three opportunities in the second-half when we could have got good advantage off tap and go, we didn't take them ourselves. They are probably the main things really and also we had a breach (of the three up, three back rule) when we had a really good attacking option, we had two inside, but they are probably small things in the grand scheme of it all. We just need to tidy up our game. We were sloppy in possession when we got into their attacking third, they were nice and crisp, that was probably the big difference between the teams."

With Pairc Tailteann out of bounds Meath will play their home games in different venues a situation Freeman describes as "far from ideal" but he quickly adds he's not using that as an excuse, "a pitch is a pitch." Instead he wants to work with the players on improving the things they need to improve on including "concentration" and not conceding too many turnovers.

It's all part of ensuring that the plans worked on in training during the week come to fruition on the day when it matters. Match day.