'We didn't get to the pitch of championship football, that's our biggest disappointment'

Just four weeks ago the scenes in Tullamore were very different as the Meath players and supporters celebrated promotion from NFL Div 2 following a win over Offaly, but last Sunday there was shock on the faces of the Royal fans and stunned silence from the Meath dressing room.

While obviously subdued by the outcome Meath manager Robbie Brennan was not surprised as championship football can throw up all sort of anomalies and Westmeath proved full value for their win.

The manager also agreed with the possibility that the three-week gap since Meath's last game, compared to Westmeath who had beaten Longford so comprehensively just a week earlier could have been a factor.

"It was always possible, right? Westmeath were always sitting there waiting from an ambush point of view and felt like we fell into it. We didn't get to the pitch of championship football, that's our biggest disappointment in there and there's a massive lesson for us in trying to make sure that doesn't happen again," said Brennan.

"They won so convincingly the first day you'd wonder how good was that to them from a championship point of view, apart from obviously confidence.

"I actually thought we started okay, we controlled the first few minutes and that was our worry coming down, that we wouldn't get to the pitch of it. But we did and then we missed a few chances and obviously some bad timing of their goals and you're chasing for the rest of the game. Ultimately we gave the ball away too many times to win a match.

"It's great credit to the lads for hanging in there and fighting on a day where it doesn't go well. We knew it was never going to always go well for us and unfortunately today is one of those days, but we'll lick our wounds, pick ourselves up and try and go again."

There was such a heightened sense of expectation surrounding Meath following their run to the All-Ireland semi-final last year and their promotion to Div 1 in the league that maybe that weighed heavy on the shoulders of the players?

However, Brennan didn't buy into that theory.

"Obviously there was a lot of noise with everybody saying we're one of the favourites for Leinster and I think that was warranted because I thought the lads had put themselves in the position to do that," said the manager.

"We certainly did speak about the expectation, but I really don't think that was the issue. I think it's just some poor execution on the day really and that whole coming out of a long league campaign and not getting to the pitch of it, the difference between league and championship, as you've seen there, is massive and we just didn't get to it."

The consequence of Sunday's defeat is that now Meath have to wait six weeks before their next game in the All-Ireland series. That will pose a whole different set of problems for Brennan, his management and the players, but he admitted that they have a contingency plan in place and will have to execute it now.

"I'll go ask Jason (Plunkett, Co Board chairman) if he's got 80 grand for a training camp in Portugal or something, but it'll be more likely a trip to Nobber for a night," joked the manager.

"As a management, we did look at it with our S & C crew as well, we looked at both possibilities from today, so we have a plan in place, but obviously not one we were hoping to have to put into action, but we will now.

"We have just reminded the players there that there's a huge amount of work done and you can't just let it all fall away because of one performance where we haven't got up to the pitch of it, they don't become a bad team overnight, we've still got some amazing footballers.

"So it's heads down and we'll see what the next four or five weeks have in store for us.

"The players have to accept they're going to have a bit of a low for a number of days and that's fine, and a bit like last year, you have to accept that and allow that to happen, but there's only two options, you either stop or you go forward and we'll be going forward for sure.

"We haven't become a bad team, we didn't do anything tactically different, we had our homework and our prep done on Westmeath, we just found ourselves against another team waiting in the long grass and we just don't quite get to the pitch of it and I think ultimately that was it.

"There's probably a million little things if I look back now, but they're all small things and ultimately you still have to perform on the pitch and we just didn't get to that level.

"We won't dwell, we'll take our learnings from it 100%, no more than any other game but we'll be pushing forward, that group has still a huge ceiling ahead of them. They're going to have some great days ahead and we've just got to look forward to those now," said the manager.

Looking at the game itself Brennan found it difficult to put his finger on exactly why Meath didn't get to the standards he knows they are capable of.

"We started well and missed a couple of chances, maybe three two-point chances, and if they go over they'll probably come in at half-time, a different story.

"Having said that, we still weren't at the pitch of it, that's the reality. They (Westmeath) looked that bit hungrier and sharper, hunting and chasing us down and we just didn't get there until probably into the last five, six, seven, eight minutes when it obviously looked like it was going away from us, then the lads dug in.

"The timings of their goals were crucial too. One of them was probably sloppy on our side and the other one, I thought we had it and then it bounces two or three times and they come away with the goal.

"Credit to Westmeath, Mark (McHugh, manager) had them really firing today and they were the better team for sure.

"The one thing you could see from them was their transition was fantastic and they've got some real speedsters who can hurt you in those areas, I wasn't surprised that they were able to cause us a problem in that regard," concluded the manager.