Kildare v Meath

Really looking forward to this one. Think it's going to a very tough game.

We need to tie down their speedy fowards – backs are going to have to be tight and Conway and P Cribbin will really need to put in a shift. I'd imagine Lyons will take Reilly...

Reilly a big man Hg, would Johnny Byrne not be more suited to picking him up ?.

Certainly up for debate Seamus... Ollie capable of doing a man-marking job when he puts his mind to it – eg. Bernard Brogan – although then you wonder if you're losing his forward bursts. Although I suppose Lee Keegan does both....

To me, the Meath forwards are all about pace and power – I don't think they have the real flair of Giles, Geraghty, Dowd et al. Like, if you deny them space I'm not sure they have someone to go by a player, pick out a killer pass or just generally produce moment of magic. But I have no doubt O'Neill, Sweeney and co. will be doing their homework this week.

Story with tickets lads? Just went onto tickets.ie and nothing available atm.

MD - they're up now. Would advise everyone to get on it ASAP because this bad boy is the hottest ticket since Guns N Roses...

Apols – my bad. Event is listed but you can't buy tickets yet. Will keep an eye out and keep everyone posted.

Yeah had the same issue HG, hopefully will be up next couple of days, will be a sell out I'd imagine.

Stakes just went up in this one. We're in the A side of the draw this summer – next round will feature two from Galway, Mayo, Tyrone and Donegal. Potential landmine if we lose.

HauntedGraffiti wrote:

Stakes just went up in this one. We're in the A side of the draw this summer – next round will feature two from Galway, Mayo, Tyrone and Donegal. Potential landmine if we lose.  

Not until Round 3 though. We would play one of the round 1 winners first.

But no more of that talk! We're going to beat Meath!

Emailed tickets.ie and they just got back to me with reply – tickets will go on sale later today.

Regarding Reilly surely it will be Doyle that picks him up, didn't he do so in the league this year or am I mistaking? I dont see anyone else marking him unless he moves into the full forward line where Mick would then be placed on him then. Meath will be hard beat but I do think having the game outside of Croke Park is a help to us. Tommy gives everything every time he plays but the open spaces of C.P. dont suit him at all.

This will be a tough game and will show us how this team is progressing under O'Neill and co.

O'Connor Park is a metre longer and a couple of metres wider than Croke Park. Games in Croke Park tend to be faster because of the pitch surface and the height of the stands reducing the impact of the wind which leads to the game being more open and looking like there is more space but anyway ..... in the league Donal Lenihan and Cillian O'Sullivan outshone Reilly. If they are nullified then I wouldn't worried about Reilly, most of his scores v Louth were handed to him on a plate from 25 - 30 metres out straight in front of the posts.

Big worry is Meath starting at a pace the lads haven't seen all year and letting them get an early lead to build up their confidence. If we stop them getting away early on then we have a great chance because we have a better midfield. The only reason Paddy O'Rourke is kept in goals is because of the length of his kickouts and I'd say a fair portion of the next 10 days in Meath will be spent trying to avoid our midfielders on kickouts. Keoghan on Kelly, Tobin on Flynn and then its up to the remaining 4 forwards to do damage.

The amount of times Meath people, especially Andy McEntee, have talked about taking on Dublin in a Leinster Final has really got on my nerves this year!

What's their bench like, if it's tight the subs could swing it either way. I would have thought we are stronger in this area. It might be worth a couple of points late on which could​ push the result our way.

Big question will be whether Brophy is ready to start or not. Don't think Meath have a player of his calibre on the bench.

Anyone know if Neil Flynn will be back?

O'Neill said in the Nationalist that Brophy was going well in training and the extra couple of weeks he'll be pushing hard. Would be a serious option to spring from the sideline with 15 or 20 to go.

Crowd will also go apeshit if/when Brophy comes in.

Tickets up on tickets.ie lads just got mine there!

HauntedGraffiti wrote:

Anyone know if Neil Flynn will be back?

50/50 chance to back was not bad as frist feared

Would reckon Paddy is a near cert to see game time next day.

Couldn't see anything but a comfortable Kildare win last Sunday, had seen Laois four or five times this year and a good bit as the slide has accelerated over the last six or seven years. Paying the price for doing nothing underage and giving some unqualified people important jobs with the developments squads, in so much as they do them. Kildare reaping the dividends of laying firm foundations over a decade ago (Saint Bryan Murphy, what that man has done for his adopted county is unreal, Syl Merrins and a few others) and putting good people in place a decade or so ago.

Meath I'd be more worried about, though Kildare deserve to be favourites. Even in the first round League game that has gotten a big airing, if you look at the first half again, Meath and O'Sullivan in particular, galloped through the middle a good few times and spurned a few goal chances that would obviously have altered the dynamic of the game. They won't fear us. But, and especially with Brophy and maybe Neil Flynn back as options, and Feely and Moolick getting the upper hand at midfield hopefully, Kildare have the ability to do damage.

Could be a high scoring affair and not one for the feint-hearted - or those that like a comfortable run for their punt. A real test that will tell us a lot more than last Sunday. Nervously looking forward to it.

Would love to see Brophy at some stage aswell. You would imagine if the game was in the melting pot he would give supporters and team mates a huge lift coming on.

Was in Navan on that glorious spring day earlier in the league. Ben Mc goaled with his first touch and we played really well that day. Was buzzing coming home afterwards and the win set us up for a brilliant few weeks of league football afterwards. Up there with the best league performances Ive seen.

However as has been pointed out, Meath sliced through us so often that day and it was a case that although we were 5-10 points up for most of the game it never felt like we were over the line. I have a feeling it could be something similar on Sat week (highly unlikely that we will get so far ahead though)

Meath will not fear Kildare in the slightest and they have improved an awful lot since the first league outing. They were a tad unlucky not to get promoted with us in the end.

Should be very little between the two sides full of confidence. You would imagine with our league win, slightly better strength in depth , the fact we played in tullamore so recently should see us get over the line just about.

Without a doubt it looks set up to be another year or two taken off our life expectancies with a heart in mouth game looking likely.

This is going to be a right battle. Meath are a decent outfit and on an upward curve (similar to ourselves). As stated already, the result in Navan flattered us a bit, given Meath's missed goal chances (particularly the one just before halftime) and we were also at full strength for that game - with McCormack, D. Flynn, N, Flynn our FF line.

If N Flynn and Brophy were available from the bench I think that could swing it for us.

The game could be very important for this team's development - I really hope they stand and deliver, they have the talent, of that I have no doubt, but this game won't be won by talent alone.

Yep, plenty of quality in this squad as we know - but in these types of game, you have to go to war, end of.

One important point to note about the Meath-Louth game - Louth abandoned the sweeper system they'd been playing all year with, because according to Colin Kelly it "wasn't working". I find that quite incredible, given that they'd won promotion and their first championship game, but there you go. Anyway, it gave the Meath forwards loads of space to run into and they totally went to town.

That's why I think it's very important for Conway, Cribbin, Moolick and Feely to get back and plug those gaps. Fundamentally, we are an attacking team but - and maybe people will disagree - if we minimise Meath's space, I don't think they have a Michael Murphy, Paul Geaney or Cillian O'Connor to produce a few moments of brilliance, or provide enough distraction, to open us up.

In any event, it probably will be high octane, heart in mouth stuff with shades of 20 years ago.

I think player for player we are streets ahead of Meath. Graham Reilly is there main man. Stop him and they have no consistent performer. They have pacey forwards but they don't deliver consistently enough. I think we should be looking at a comfortable 5plus point victory if we are fully tuned into the task at hand. If we are not fully about our business as we haven't been in the last 6 Leinster Semi Finals then we will be looking to the back door and there will be a severe sense of let down and that we are back to square one.

My one concern was although we beat Meath by 11 or so points in the league, I felt we took our foot off the pedal in the manner a Dublin or Kerry wouldn't have done in the same situation. We spurned a few goal chances towards the end and our scoring selection dipped to what it had of been earlier in the game. Meath will take enough out of that match what with goal chances missed and that they had a slight better finish. If we had have been positively ruthless for 74+ minutes that they we had the chance to beat them by 20. They definitely wouldn't have fancied their chances now if that was the case. my fear is we gave them a little something to cling onto.

True Umpire, if you go onto the Meath forum you will see that they believe they handed the game to us with the early goals and not taking their goals.
We really need to stop them running down the middle so easily and continue to tackle like we did in the Laois game. If we can do that then their pace will be less of a problem.
Would love to see Paul Cribben really up his game, he is good enough to be scoring 3 or 4 points a game.