Greville left to rue missed opportunities

The Westmeath native was disappointed to come away from Sundays clash in Mullingar empty-handed.

He may be a staunch Westmeath hurling man but there was no doubting where Johnny Greville’s loyalties rested for Sunday’s NHL Div 2 clash of Meath and their near neighbours.

A sigh and a tut from the Meath manager just before he undertook his post-match interview spoke louder than words. Despite his team's strong performance, Greville was understandably disappointed to come away empty-handed from the contest with his native county .

“Goals win games and we had four opportunities there that we missed at various stages. Westmeath were far more clinical in the first 10 or 15 minutes and it took us time to settle," Greville lamented to the Meath Chronicle.

"We created those goal opportunities though and we were well in that game. We could have come away with a win if we had scored one or two of those chances. We were here to win today and we did not come down to put in a performance and get a clap on the back.

“Most of them are going to go home this evening where parents and loved ones will say 'well done lads'. There has to be a point where we say we should have won that. We grinded it out in the second-half and got ourselves back into it.

"We are playing a style of hurling that lads may not be used to but they are very comfortable, confident and efficient within it. We are happy with the performance but disappointed with the result”

Kilskyre/Moylagh’s Tom Shine had been a very important figure in the few games that Meath had played before Sunday this year. He had been free-taker for the side and was prolific in attack.

Shine tweaked his hamstring during training and after a week of deliberation, Greville opted to let the sharpshooter rest rather than risk a worse injury. Greville praised Shine’s replacement on frees, Mark Leavy. He said the Dunderry man would learn from an error late on in the game.

“We had to take a precautionary approach with Tom Shine today. He suffered a hamstring niggle and he didn’t train this week. If we played him today and he pulled his hamstring he would be out for eight weeks and that is no good to us," informed Greville.

"Our medical team are brilliant and we followed their advice. Mark Leavy took over on frees and did well. He will learn from that last ‘65’ where he tried to dink it into Mikey (Cole). We like to see lads express themselves and be creative and we don’t like to restrict lads. Mark will learn from that and pop it over the next time he is in that position.”

Greville was asked about the referee’s performance on Sunday. He did say that Niall Malone made some errors but he largely defended the Clare native and praised all the officials for their communication on the day.

“To give the officials some credit, they are learning on their feet. Niall Malone has come up from Clare today and he is an experienced referee. He made mistakes just the same as some of the players did out there. The mistakes were probably balanced out between the teams," suggested the Meath manager.

"There were a couple of times where the fouls for overcarrying was heavier on our side. Westmeath seemed to be able to take an extra step or two. The officials were very clear and concise with their communication to us regarding fouls and frees. I can’t really be hard on them because there was open conversations between us and them.”

Greville had high praise for how several individual players performed on Sunday. He was especially pleased with the performance of his full-back line.

“Jarlath (Ennis) and Conor (Leavy) came up against two quality players there today. Eoin Keyes is a top-notch hurler and it was the first time that Conor has come up against a player of that calibre. I thought Conor did really well on him and he is improving with every single game," praised Greville.

"So did Jarlath. His man today, Josh Coll is an exceptional young hurler in Westmeath and he has been a real star at underage level. I thought our back line as a whole did really well.

"Right across the pitch though, we had really good performances. I thought Noah Conroy did really going forward. Damien Healy and Lorcan Byrne were brilliant through the middle. I thought our bench today was really good as well. We have high-calibre players training with us looking for minutes and when they do come in they always deliver.”

Next up for Meath in the league is a home game against Derry. Greville is not taking anything for granted for the Ulster outfit’s trip to Trim on Sunday 22nd February..

“Any Derry team you play are really good and we know that. They put Mayo to the sword this weekend. They went down to Laois and put in a credible performance against probably the top team in the division. We will be taken nothing for granted with them coming to Trim in two weeks time," warned Greville.

"We will reset and recover after today. The focus will be fully on making sure that the performance levels are back up to where they need to be at again. We will work on the few things that we have learned from today on some of the clinical stuff and taking opportunities. We will tidy up a few things defensively.

"Any time a Derry team comes to Trim or we go to Derry, you would be a fool for thinking that you are going to get anything easy,” concluded Greville before retuning to the dressing room to lament on what might have been for this young Meath side.