Realistic reaction by Andrews after win

Following Saturday"s Christy Ring Cup win over Mayo at Pairc Tailteann, John Andrews continued to hold his thoughts regarding the potential storm that was brewing lastweek with the Co Committee executive over the fixing of several club football championship games. It was suggested by Co Committee chairman Barney Allen that Andrews had informed his players that if any of them played with their clubs in those games on Tuesday, 1st July then they would be dropped from the senior hurling panel. While refusing to get too deeply drawn into the subsequent negotiations that took place with the Co Committee, Andrews did confirm that a compromise had been reached. 'Some of the games were rescheduled. However, instead of a having a tough training session we will have to have an aerobic session in the pool on Tuesday night and we"d rather be hurling. 'We have 15 lads that will have played football on Monday night so it wouldn"t be right to have a tough session on Tuesday. We will also train on Thursday and then Sunday morning. That only gives us two nights because we can"t do too much in the week before the Kerry game, we will only be keeping the legs stretched. 'I spoke to Cathal Joyce about these fixtures and I asked him was there any way the games could be put back another day. He managed to get that done for us and I"d like to thank Cathal for all his hard work. 'It is hard to take though. With 15 lads playing football, two or three of them are likely to get injured and that is a fact of life, but that is what we have to live with. 'I have to look after my shop and that is what I have done. Last week I was made aware that the fixtures were going ahead, so I spoke to the players. I told them that I"d prefer if those games didn"t go ahead and if they didn"t play in them. 'Individually the players said they wouldn"t play so I asked them to notify their clubs of that decision. 'That was the conversation we had about the situation. We have to prepare properly for the Christy Ring Cup and I believe that we are good enough to win it. 'Technically, according to the rulebook, the Co Committee are within their rights, but morally and in the interests of fair play I don"t think it was right. A lot of people will believe in that point of view. It is not just me, there are 35 or 40 of us involved in this. Cathal Joyce has been working very hard behind the scenes and we had a good discussion on Thursday. While it is not ideal it is a little bit better. If the lads get injured with their clubs then they will be out of the Christy Ring Cup and they will suffer and Meath will suffer. I know the club scene has to be looked after and I"m an advocate for the clubs, but our backs were put to the wall last week,' said Andrews. With all the controversy out of the way, the manager"s focus was very much on the game and he was disappointed by what he viewed as a poor Meath performance, but he accepted that he would much rather play poorly and win. 'We never expected an easy win, but every time we pulled a few points clear things happened inside the 50-metre line and they got frees that brought them back into the game. We only played in fits and starts and that was disappointing,' said the Meath boss. 'When they came back with two points in the second-half we hit back with five points. They got a couple more points from frees that we weren"t getting. We battled hard and so did Mayo. They were tenacious all over the field and upped their game while we were on the back foot. 'Our lads finished out well. We can"t be really pleased with the way we played and we know we have a lot of work to do. It is good to play badly and still win and there is no doubt that we did play badly. 'The conditions were very blustery and the rain made it very slippery and made the ball hard to handle. The wind wasn"t a huge factor, but it was hard to get the shots on target. 'Our form has dipped a bit since the Kehoe Cup, but we will get better. We have a lot of good hurlers and we will work hard. Today"s game was a funny one that was dictated by the conditions and we only got two frees in the second-half,' concluded Andrews.