Meath set to tackle champs in Parnell Park tonight

Meath manager Sean Barry is looking forward to this evening’s Leinster u-21 FC quarter-final tie against Leinster champions Dublin at Parnell Park as is his opposite number Dessie Farrell who told the Meath Chronicle that he would have preferred to have made the journey to Navan for the eagerly-awaited tie

When the draw was made, it favoured Meath with home advantage, but due to the lack of a suitable venue to host the game in the Royal County, the Leinster Council fixed the tie for the Dublin venue.

However, according to both managers, the venue is not a major issue and they both also explained that Meath will have home venue the next time they are paired with Dublin - subject to a suitable venue.

For this weeks’ tie, Farrell will be assisted by selectors Mick Galvin (St Oliver Plunkett’s), Alan McNally (St Anne’s) and Philip McElwee (Na Fianna) and the former county player indicated that he is in a re-building mode with a relatively inexperienced panel following last year’s Leinster title success although he has the experience of Donaghmore/Ashbourne clubman Michael deegan to call on.

“We have a very young team this year, our goalkeeper Lorcan Molloy would be one of the more experienced members from last year’s panel, but we will have a lot of younger players coming through,” he told the Meath Chronicle.

“This can be a very exciting grade with free-flowing and fast football usually the norm and not the defensive-orientated game that you get at adult level.

“From our perspective, we would have preferred to travel to Navan because the bigger pitch at Páirc Tailteann would have suited us better, suited the type of football we like to play.

“The pitch in Parnell Park is a bit tighter than Navan and it probably won’t suit us as well as Pairc Táilteann would.

“A game between Dublin and Meath is always special, when it’s in the championship there is always something extra to it and we are all looking forward to it as I’m sure the Meath players are as well.

“Meath played in the Hastings Cup, but we weren’t involved, we had a fairly lengthy series of trials and internal games, we also had a few challenge games and we have assembled a good squad of players.
“We will find out how good our panel is when we tackle Meath and that’s as far as I would be prepared to look at the moment,” he concluded.

Farrell’s counterpart, Sean Barry With his selectors Cormac Sullivan, Tom Hanley and Barry Dunphy have are plenty of reasons for optimism ahead of the top tie.

There was that victory against Leitrim in the Hastings Shield final two weeks ago, a victory that was achieved in difficult conditions at Pearse Park, Longford.

A notable statistic to emerge from the overall results in the Hastings competition was that Meath failed to win at home to Cavan and Westmeath, but were unbeaten away with that final win, the third victory on the road.

Meath also defeated Wicklow and Roscommon, but Barry is not reading too much into the results and suggested that a step up in performance will be required if the Dublin challenge is to be negotiated.

“We will have to step it up for a championship game, but we are well aware of that and we will also be the underdogs when we tackle Dublin in Parnell Park,” he commented.

“The venue for the game won’t make any difference to us, I know there are some people saying the opposite, it would be great to have Dublin in Pairc Tailteann.

“We have played better away from home this year so we have nothing to fear going to Parnell Park, it might suit us better.

“You can’t do better than play a game and we’ve had five competitive outings now in January and February and some challenge games.

“The next target is to have more than one game in March, to achieve that we will have to beat Dublin, that’s a great incentive for a Meath footballer,” he concluded.

Meath - Johnny Lynch Moynalty; Michael Flood St Brigid's, Daniel O'Neill Wolfe Tones, Jamie Reilly St Michael's; Gavin McGowan Ratoath, Thomas McGovern Donaghmore/Ashbourne, Niall Kane Simonstown Gaels; Donie Ryan Skyrne,  Ronan Jones Dunboyne; Shaun Byrne Donaghmore / Ashbourne, Joey Wallace Ratoath, James McEntee Curraha; Kevin Ryan Summerhill, Ruairi O Coileann Navan O'Mahonys, Daire Rowe Syddan.

Dublin - Lorcan Molloy; David Bolger, Martin Cahilan, Eoin Smith; Glenn O'Reilly, Sean McMahon, Darragh Spillane; Andy Foley, Killian Deeley; Tom Lahiff, Michael Deegan (Donaghmore/Ashbourne), Cillian O'Shea; Dara Mullin, Con O'Callaghan, Aaron Byrne.

Keep up to date on the action from Parnell Park via Meath Chronicle twitter.