'Our get-out-of-jail card is used now and it is knock-out from here'

Jittery Meath falter at first hurdle

Stephen Sheil’s Meath suffered their second straight defeat to the same opposition on Sunday in the opening round of the All-Ireland Intermediate Camogie series. In the end, the Royals' neighbours Westmeath cruised to the finish line.

The Carlow native spoke about how his side were a ‘tad jittery’ in front of the posts in the first-half but did point out that they had Westmeath slightly rattled after the restart.

“Goals obviously win matches and they got the goals at the right time. Megan Dowdell scored 1-2 from play early on. We shut her down fairly well until half-time but when you shut her down, you are taking from one to give to the other. We were a bit jittery in the first-half and we had seven wides. If we had converted a few more of those opportunities, it is a different game. We put in a lot of work to get over the line but the goals killed us,” said Sheil.

“Megan (Dowdall) is obviously hard to cope with but she's not the only one. Amelia Shaw and Caoimhe McCrossan are top-class as well. We have the talent as well though. At half-time, I told them to play our own game and you could see in the first 10 minutes of the second-half that we took the game to them. They were on the ropes a little bit but when they got the second goal, we just weren't able to bounce back from it. It's a difficult one to fathom because we had our homework done and it did sort of pan out the way we expected it to.”

The conditions on Sunday were warm, very warm. It was without a doubt the hottest weather that this Meath camogie side have played a competitive contest in this season. However, Sheil was not using that as an excuse and said that his side have to be adaptable to different weather conditions.

“I don’t think the heat had too much of an impact on today. Westmeath were flying at the end there. I know, when you are on top and things are going your way, the ball seems to fall in the right places. We were behind, so the ball was not falling right for us. It was warm out there but it was the same for Westmeath. At the end of the day it’s Ireland and we have to be adaptable to different weather conditions. We had the same game plan regardless of the weather and it worked for 45 minutes but then they just got on top.”

There were several changes to the starting 15 for Sunday’s second clash in a row with their near neighbours. Sheil said that the changes were partly for tactical reasons but the Carlow native did not elaborate fully on the subject.“To be perfectly honest, we have a panel of 26 and every one of them are as good as each other. We thought maybe that if we were able to empty the bench at some point that it might give us a bit of a lift. So there was some tactical thinking behind the personal changes but there were other factors as well, which I won’t get into.”

Meath’s safety net of losing a game is now gone. Sheil hopes and feels that the fact that it is pretty much a knock-out competition for Meath from here on out will inspire his team.

“That is our cushion gone now and we have to win the next two games. It would have been nice to go into the Laois or Carlow game knowing that we had that safety net. Our get-out-of-jail card is used now and it is knock-out from here. The girls probably relish that a bit more. We have played both Laois and Carlow already this year and neither of them beat us. That said, we will have to reset and do our homework on them.”

Sheil concluded by sharing his positive views on the acquisition of land by Meath Camogie at Dunganny.

“The purchase of the land is a very positive move for Meath camogie. To be fair to the county board, any time this year that Dunganny was not available, we were able to get a club pitch and we were fine. The land purchase is great though and I think Meath will be only the fourth camogie organisation to have their own pitch,” said Shiel.

“The amount of work that has been done in the background to get a pitch has been fantastic. The GAA have supported them as well. For any young girl coming up from club, it will be great to have a county set-up and a base. It will take a while for it to come to fruition but it is great that the right steps are being taken.”

Meath’s next assignment will be away to Laois on Saturday 6th June.