'The lads know that they are a lot better than what they displayed out there'

CHRISTY RING CUP REACTION Meath manager frustrated with lack of intensity from his side

A dejected Johnny Greville walked out of Dressing Room 1 at Trim GAA after witnessing his side fall to a heavy Christy Ring Cup defeat at the hands of London, writes Tom Gannon.

The Meath hurling manager is a very level-headed individual, win or lose, but the puzzled look on the Westmeath man's face expressed everything you needed to know about Meath's performance on Saturday.

Speaking to the local media, Greville firstly praised London for what they achieved on Saturday. He also explained that he was disappointed at how much his side left themselves to do after a poor first-half showing.

"London had an excellent league and they have some top-class hurlers. In the first-half, they seemed to create something out of everything they sent in," he recalled.

"We let ourselves down a little bit in the full-back line in the first-half. It took chasing the game in the second-half to get our performance levels up. We left a bit too much to do, which is disappointing. Our target for this campaign is to win the Christy Ring and now we face into the next four games needing to win every one of them."

Greville gave some insight into what the message was to his players in the dressing room after the 12-point loss.

"The lads know that they are a lot better than what they displayed out there today. Straight after a game like that is not really the time to let your emotions take over. I told the lads that we don't make it easy on ourselves. We always seem to be backs against the wall. Throughout the league, we were learning but at some point that has to stop and action has to start." said Greville

"We kind of had lads wrapped up in cotton wool during the week. Sessions were light and there was no sign of anything wrong. Before we left the dressing room, intensity was the keyword and that is exactly what we were lacking."

Daire Shine made his return to action for Meath after suffering a nasty head injury against Derry in March. Greville also gave an update on a possible return to action for Trim's Joey Cole and Ratoath's Cian Rogers.

"It was great to see Daire Shine back after his awful injury a few weeks ago. Cian Rogers and Joey Cole will hopefully be back available next week. We will get stronger but it doesn't matter how many lads you add back into it, if you don't bring that intensity and hunger to a championship game, you are going to be found wanting."

Two Ratoath men, Darragh Kelly and Sean Corbett lined out against London under difficult circumstances. Kelly had experienced an allergic reaction early on Saturday morning which required a visit to the A&E. Corbett's grandfather, Patrick who was a big influence on Sean's career, sadly passed away on Thursday.

"Darragh Kelly was subbed on at half-time. He was due to start but he had a medical episode this morning and was in A&E at 5am this morning so fair play to him for making himself available. The want and the will to put the jersey on and to represent is a huge thing for us. Same for Sean Corbett, his grandfather passed away on Thursday, and today, Sean represented himself, his family, his club and Meath excellently."