Earlier intervention might have prevented red cards

THE best way to face a battle is full on. His players did it as early as the fourth minute of Sunday's NFL Div 2 game against Dublin and Meath manager Colm Coyle followed suit when he faced the press after the defeat.

The losing dressing room can be a very small space. There is nowhere to hide, but Coyle wasn't shirking from his responsibilities and in true Meath fashion he stood strong in the face of a potential storm.

Honesty has always been Coyle's most redeeming feature. His use of sharp wit to offset any potential tricky moment is legendary and on Sunday he was no different when asked for his views about the incident at the start of the game.

"What, the throw-in?," was his quick response. But he knew exactly what was being asked and he laid some of the blame at the door of the officials for not dealing with the situation before it got out of hand.

"I thought Seamus Kenny was fouled and if the free was blown up then the incident wouldn't have happened. It escalated from there with everyone racing in to see what was going on," said Coyle.

"The referee took action and decided to send four players off. It was all happening so fast that I'd have to see it again. It was a big melee and I couldn't see who was doing the hitting because there was that much going on.

"I'll take the Arsene Wenger approach and say that I didn't see any of my players doing anything wrong.

"The referee sent four off and that should have been enough of a warning to everybody.

"I thought they got some very handy frees. Darren Fay got booked after a report by an umpire for pulling a jersey, while our inside forwards were being pulled and dragged all day.

"These things happen in games, but Dublin got easy frees and went seven points up, we rallied near the end, but overall Dublin were the better team in the second-half and deservedly won the game".

Against Westmeath in an earlier league game Meath struggled to take advantage of numerical supremacy and that old chestnut reared its head again as Meath had13 players to Dublin's 12.

"It tends to happen that a team that has less players throws caution to the wind, they ran at us. Some of our lads didn't do enough chasing, but when we made a few changes we got the two goals, but we should have made those changes earlier."

It was also suggested to Coyle that those goals and the tremendous Meath spirit only served to paper over a lot of the cracks.

"The league is where you can afford to be making mistakes. We will look at the video and point out those mistakes. You've hit the nail on the head there because we gave away two frees in the first-half by kicking the ball straight to them," he said.

"We continued to make those mistakes in the second-half, but we have four weeks before the Carlow game in the championship to work on those things.

"I wouldn't say that today's defeat will be psychologically damaging to us. It was a bonus for us to be in contention for something in that game today. It is always disappointing to lose to Dublin.

"It has been a disappointing league campaign for us. There were good and bad things, but there is plenty to work on for next year when we will have to try to get promotion. We had a lot of injuries and we have made a lot of mistakes," he said.

The players will now return to their clubs for two weeks before rejoining the county panel for a training trip to Portugal. The break is a bit of a nuisance for Coyle, but it is something that cannot be avoided.

"It is a bit disappointing that we won't have the players much for the next two weeks. All we can do is our best. After they come back from the club's it will be full steam ahead," concluded Coyle.