'We are gutted'

LADIES NFL DIV 1 REACTION Manager disappointed with poor performance

Shane McCormack witnessed his Meath side suffer a second straight defeat in Ladies Div 1 NFL against Dublin in Parnell Park on Saturday, writes Tom Gannon.

After a post-mortem private discussion with some of the more experienced players and the rest of the management team, McCormack made his way over to the members of the press to share his thoughts on what was a tough day for the Royals.

"We are gutted. I am gutted for the girls and the rest of the management team," he told the assembled media.

"We are on the back of a bad loss against Kildare last weekend. We regrouped Tuesday and training during the week went well. There are no excuses for today. Dublin looked more hungry than we did and they had a lot of runners coming off the shoulders.

"I think the damage was done in the first-half. We had a goal chance early on and that might have swung momentum a bit but Dublin came at us hard today and they were very strong."

McCormack pointed to the fact that in the first three games, Meath were able to create a lot of goal chances and that was something that his side was missing in Saturday's performance against Dublin.

"In our first three games, we were creating a lot of goals and it was disappointing today that we didn't have many goal chances. There was no one running off the shoulder. At the end of the day though, Dublin were fully deserving winners."

McCormack is confident that despite two poor performances, his players and management team will keep their heads high and prepare themselves for the battle against Kerry in two weeks' time.

"We were all in agreement on the management team, we didn't turn up. We didn't do the simple things right. I said to the girls after the game, we win together and we lose together. We could drop our heads for the next few weeks but these girls won't do that and the management team certainly won't do it.

"We have two weeks break now and we have a lot of work to do. We are going to get backlash from outside the circle but at the end of the day we just have to get our heads up and ready ourselves for the Kerry game."

Meath could have potentially swung momentum in their favour early on if Ciara Smyth's goal opportunity had gone in instead of rattling off the post, but as McCormack points out, that's Gaelic Football for you.

"The most disappointing thing is that we never get going, we trained with high intensity on Tuesday and Thursday and there was no intensity out there today. Had Ciara's (Smyth) goal gone in, we would have had a bit of momentum, but it didn't and that's Gaelic Football. It's a game of small margins. We have no excuses and we just have to work extremely hard for the next couple of weeks."

McCormack said that the girls were very much up for this contest and that the loss to Kildare had had an affect on them. However, Dublin proved to be very strong and as McCormack says, they gave Meath no oxygen.

"The first three games we were moving well. The Kildare game was a bump on the road and there was a few things that came out of that that we worked on.

"The girls did not take the loss well last week and they were really up for the game today but we never got it going. If you don't get going against a team like Dublin and they get on top of you, you're in trouble. They put the foot on the throat today and gave us no oxygen." said McCormack.

"I told the girls in the huddle afterwards to turn around and look at the scoreboard because it is embarrassing, and they know that. I never want them to feel like they did after the game today.

We will use these last two losses heading into a difficult Leinster Championship in a month or two."

Unfortunately for Meath supporters, the result wasn't the only blow that the Royals suffered on Saturday. Soon after being introduced into the contest, Maire O'Shaughnessy suffered what looked like a serious knee injury. McCormack expressed his best wishes to the Donaghmore/Ashbourne midfielder and praised her for her impact on the team.

"Maire (O'Shaughnessy) went down at first and we thought she was okay for a few minutes until she went down again. I'm not really sure how bad it is, but we send our best wishes to her, she has been phenomenal through the years. She has been back with us for a couple of weeks now and she is a super role-model. Please god, we hope that it's not too bad."