O'Hare looking to nail down starting place with Royals

James O'Hare says he is disappointed not to have a chance to a play in a final at senior level for Meath after the Royals could only draw with Longford at Ashbourne in the O'Byrne Cup on Wednesday night.

O'Hare is highly regarded as a back and he did his reputation no harm with a typically tenacious display against Paddy Christie's side in the tempest that prevailed at Ashbourne.

The sides ended up on level terms (1-7 to 0-10) but Meath needed to win to progress to the final.

The young Rathkenny man is among a host of young players, new to the senior set-up, who is looking to nail down a starting place in Colm O'Rourke's team.

He clearly wants to gain as much experience as he can to help him achieve that ambition. An O'Byrne Cup final would have offered a chance for him and the other newcomers to showcase their talents. Another chance to show what they could do.

"We set a target at the start of the year to try and win every game. I know we didn't lose against Longford but the draw was like a defeat. We haven't been in a final for a while, this is a lot of lads' first year as well, we wanted to start the year off with a bit of form going into the league.

"We are heading in the right direction just a bit off the pace, hopefully by the time the league comes around we will be in the right shape.

"We thought we created enough chances (against Longford), we just weren't clinical enough before we came out for the second-half we said we keep creating our chances but we didn't take enough.

"This is a new team, we're still gelling, people are still trying to find their positions, we're learning. The O'Byrne Cup is where we wanted to learn. Before we go into the league we wanted to plan out everything."

Meath fielded 31 players in the O'Byrne Cup as the management looked to the competition to have a look at new players. The young Rathkenny defender pointed to the fact there is now a highly competitive edge in the Meath camp with the rush for places intense.

"Last week (v Laois) we worked out that the average age of the team was 23, it's very young, and we young lads who were never on the panel before. We also have great leaders, players we can look up to, there is a great balance. I'm only coming into the set-up, this is only my second year, second game.

"You have to take every game as you can, we'll to to training next week and prepare for the league."