Changes to club football championship in the pipeline

Changes to the format of the Meath football club championships would be welcomed by senior football manager Mick O’Dowd it emerged at Monday night’s Co Board meeting in Navan where Declan McCabe and Brendan Murphy were ratified as the new selectors.

The Co Board has formed a new committee - a Review Committee - to make recommendations about the structure of the club football championships and a report will be prepared quickly, possibly for the next meeting which is scheduled for Monday 5th October.

The five-man committee is chaired by Liam Keane and includes Gerry Giblin (Donaghmore/Ashbourne), Sean Kelly (Dunderry), Ollie Keegan (Gaeil Colmcille) and Colm Keys (Simonstown Gaels).

“There are too many games in the qualifying rounds of the club championships, but that could be addressed by the Co Board shortly, we discussed it with the delegates this evening,” commented O’Dowd to the Meath Chronicle after his 'behind-closed-doors' meeting with the club delegates.

“The intensity of club football needs to increase, that would be good for clubs and it would also benefit the county team,” he added.

Outlining his plans for next year, he confirmed that Declan McCabe and Brendan Murphy were the two men he wanted as selectors.

“After the Tyrone game last July myself and Trevor (Giles) and Sean (Kelly) assessed where we were with the team and we felt that some continuity was needed for the players, it’s a young panel, the average age is 23 and 17 of them have made debuts since 2012,” he said.

“Brendan (Murphy) is a real professional and works really well with the players while Declan (McCabe) has a lot of experience with Summerhill and he has a great record with them.

“Brendan has a lot to offer and we can leave it to him to work on the kick-outs, ours and the opposition, as it has become a crucial part of the game.

“Declan is an excellent coach and he will help to develop certain aspects of our game, we need to look at our tackling ability, it’s a weakness we need to work on and improve on.

“It will be a collective effort from management and players, but there is a huge appetite within the current group of players to address these and other issues.

“You have to understand that the average age of teams like Kerry, Mayo, Dublin, it’s about three years older than our group of players, the last thing the Meath players need at the moment is a break in continuity and I think the Co Board and clubs have now realised this also.

“I feel that I am improving as a manager and the players are improving, I have the appetite for the job and I have no intention of walking away from a project that is only half completed.

“The game in Omagh (against Tyrone) showed me a lot about the spirit and unity in the panel, what was big about that performance was that we were on the floor after the Westmeath game.

“The nature of the defeat Westmeath was devastating, but we made a decision that we would give it our best shot against Tyrone, we came up short, but the performance was encouraging and we can build on that,” he concluded.