No place for second best with new Meath manager

Let's get out and support the boys in green and gold. That's the message Meath hurling manager Nick Weir wants to get out there ahead of the NHL Div 2A campaign that gets underway against Offaly at Birr on Sunday, 2pm. 

Getting people behind the team is, he feels, a crucial part of the equation as he seeks to move Meath hurling up to another level.

The Westmeath man who only took over the reins towards the end of last year has a clear vision on how he can bring the team forward - and getting members of the hurling fraternity to lend their support is a factor - a big factor. 

 "It's very important, very important to the players to see hurling people in the county back the team and I think this group of players deserve all the support they get," he told the Meath Chronicle.

"When you consider the effort they have put in especially since Christmas when we have really put the players through the mill." he added. Weir talks of early morning training sessions, gym sessions, recovery sessions that were engaged in by his players over the Christmas and New Year.

"That's the amount of work these lads are putting in and it would be great if the hurling people would go out and support them," he added to emphasise his point. 

"If the players can see they are getting serious backing from supporters in Meath I definitely think you can turn hurling on its head, especially if things keep going the way we want it to go,"

Big words that indicate big dreams and to a sceptic they could be seen as the musings of a new manager full of unconfined optimism, something that tends to possess every manager at the start of a new reign.

Sometimes it can be perceived as a blind optimism, shrouding harsher realities. Yet there is a sense that Weir knows what he is talking about; that those words of hope and optimism carry considerable substance because the Westmeath man has previous.

He was involved as a coach with Kevin Martin when Westmeath won the Christy Ring Cup in 2010. He enjoyed success with his native club Raharney as a player and manager.

He also helped Longwood to the Meath SHC final in 2013, where they lost to Kilmessan, and had considerable success with DCU. He certainly appears to have left no stone unturned as Meath set out on a new NHL Div 2A campaign.

Last weekend he brought a panel of nearly 40 players down to Waterford. It was all part of his aim to get a team of players thinking and working along the same lines. Getting them battle-hardened. The weekend included a couple of full-on, in-house games including one at around 9am on Sunday morning with a inter-county referee brought in to take charge.

There was a talk given by a guest speaker (who he didn't want to name) and a session or two with a sports psychologist. The fact that almost every player who was asked was able to make the trip indicated to Weir and his management team are doing something right. 

"Giving up a couple of days like that is serious commitment, to get a full panel, 38 players and a back-up team to travel that doesn't happen by chance," he said. "If we weren't doing something right these boys wouldn't have travelled.

"In fairness to the Co Board they gave us the backing to go for the weekend. People are leaving their families, their partners, children, that takes a lot of doing. They wouldn't have done it unless they believed in what we were doing," he suggested.

He looks to the game in Birr on Sunday and sees an Offaly team who will be very formidable opponents. Very formidable, but not unbeatable. They are, of course, managed by Kilkenny's Michael Fennelly whose club Ballyhale Shamrocks recently marched to another All-Ireland Club title. Fennelly will be looking to bring some of the knowledge he learned from playing under Brian Cody to the Offaly job in a career that saw him win eight All-Ireland SHC medals and a number of All-Star awards. 

 Offaly defeated Meath by a massive 8-18 to 3-18 only a couple of weeks ago in the Kehoe Cup although there were, Weir quickly adds, mitigating factors as far as the Royal County was concerned.
 The players had trained hard in the week leading up to  the game and a series of defensive errors gift-wrapped Offaly a couple of goals. 

Offaly went on to defeat Antrim in the final (1-16 to 1-15) and they have to be considered strong favourites to win Div 2A after suffering relegation last year. Meath will start as rank outsiders, something, you suspect, Weir is not unhappy about. 

He refuses to talk of his team consolidating their place in the division. He looks at a bigger prize. He talks about how playing in the Christy Ring Cup last year Meath were in "a comfort zone."

He talks instead of stepping outside comfort zones. Consolidation is not even a word he likes. It's limiting, suggests half-measures. "It's about pushing on and getting out of the division you are in, moving out of your comfort zone, achieving things and definitely things can be achieved by this Meath team," he says.

Someone who runs his own business “grinding and sharpening” the equipment used on golf courses and pitches as well as buying and selling of industrial mowers, Weir knows plenty about risks. You get the sense that taking risks, pushing himself to a new level, is what makes life interesting for him. 

"You have to take risks, take that gamble to go for it, and that's the kind of approach we are trying to get into the players," he added. "We want to really get them into the mindset that they can take on 15 players from any other team in this country, that they can beat them no matter who they are. That's the biggest problem in Meath hurling, getting them to believe they can achieve and win big games."  

He pointed out how former Meath manager Michael Duignan, who is now Offaly Co Board chairman, has got the county hurlers back playing in Birr, the spiritual home of the game in the county and where they will get a big support behind their team.

It won't be easy for his troops, he knows that in the cauldron of St Brendan's Park a victory will be hard to eke out but he feels, if his team can believe and they have a band of supporters shouting them on, then the odds can be overturned. 

Weir has brought his own philosophy and 'can do' attitude to the Meath job.

Now, that's about to be severly tested.