Plenty of reason for optimism

It was signficant that when the final whistle sounded to bring last Sunday's NHL Div 2A  game to an end in Birr the Meath players looked crestfallen.

They were clearly bitterly disappointed to have succumbed to the Faithful County on a 1-21 to 0-26 scoreline. They knew how close they had gone to chalking up a victory. They knew how close they were to achieving one of the biggest shocks of the first weekend in the NHL.

Now they must turn their attentions to overcoming Wicklow in the second round at Paric Tailteann on Sunday, 12.30.  As Meath manager Nick Weir stood on the pitch in Birr he reflected on other incidents during a game that was slow moving  before it picked up in tempo, big time, in the last 20 minutes or so as both sides slugged it out.

 After a slow-burning opening half when they faced into a sturdy breeze (they trailed 0-10 to 0-18 at the interval) Meath produced a rousing second-half display, conjuring up some wonderfully enterprising hurling. 

Instead of looking heavy-legged and lethargic they were energised and purposeful. As the game slipped into added time they trailed by only a point. It looked like they might push on only for Offaly to add another score to their account to give them that two-point advantage. 

Damien Healy could have won it for Meath when he had a last-gasp shot blocked. While Weir was delighted with the manner of the comeback he couldn't but reflect on the opening half when Meath allowed their fancied opponents to build a platform for victory.  

"There was just too many balls overturned in the first-half as far as we were concerned, that did set us back," Weir told the Meath Chronicle. "We also gave them too many frees and yes a good deal of the damage was done in that opening half.

"We managed to haul Offaly back, but we just couldn't get that extra bit of momentum in the second-half to really put them to the sword. If we had got an extra score near the end and got level I think we would have pushed on and won," he added.

Yet despite the narrow defeat, Weir wasn't too downhearted. He saw much in his team's showing to suggest to him this group of Meath players can have much brighter days ahead. 

"The key thing I was looking for today was a performance and we got a performance from everybody, the lads who started and the players who came off the bench played their part as well, everybody was singing from the same hymn sheet, working together and that's what we were looking for here," he added. 

The Meath manager didn't accept that his team were struggling in the opening half. Meath trailed 0-10 to 0-18 at the break, but he pointed to mitigating factors for that scoreline including a hefty breeze that blew into his players' faces.

He felt they were doing fine to a point. However, at half-time some readjustments still needed to be made.

"There was no roaring or shouting, we just focused. We set our goals, set our targets in the second-half and in fairness to the lads they did all that," he said. “We felt that if we could keep the scoreboard ticking over we would be in the mix come the final few minutes and that's exactly what happened. 

"We tried to play a game where we weren't going to hit the ball anywhere, we tried to put it into the zones, into the space. The aim was to give the right ball to the right person in the position, at the right time that's what we've been working on with the boys the last couple of weeks.

 "I would have seen Meath hurling down through the years and a lot of it was about just getting rid of the ball, we did see that two or three times in the second-half today.

"We want to get out of that and get the players into the mindset where the ball is delivered to the right person, in the right position at the right time.