O'Bric reflects on mixed performance in Westmeath victory

Meath u-20s defeated their neighbours by 0-1-17 to 0-1-10 on Wednesday evening.

Cathal O'Bric watched on from the sidelines at Kinnegad as his Meath side maintained their 100% record in the Leinster u-20 championship on Wednesday evening against Westmeath. The scoreboard may suggest that this was a comprehensive victory but it was far from straightforward and after a quick start to the contest, complacency started to creep into the Royals' performance.

The Royals were shooting the lights out in Kinnegad early on in the contest and they built up a lovely 10-point cushion after only 20 minutes. However, once Westmeath settled into the contest, they outscored Meath by 0-12 to 0-9 for the remainder.

In his post-match interview with local media, O'Bric admitted that the scoreboard probably suggests a more dominant performance by his side than the reality of what played out.

"The scoreboard looks good and if you weren't at the game you would think that that was an impressive victory but there are certainly aspects of our performance that we wouldn't be happy with. I would say the majority of Westmeath's score came from balls that we gave away which is disappointing. It was kind of a fractured game, Westmeath had a player sent off with about 15 minutes to go but it never looked like we got an advantage from that. The most important thing is that we came to Kinnegad with a win and put another two points on the board."

Slane native, Matthew Kealy has been a revelation between the sticks for the Royals in their opening two games. O'Bric has been pleasantly surprised by how well Kealy has adapted to his new role.

"It's amazing, Matthew (Kealy) is an outfield player for his club and is playing in goals for us. With the new rules, we thought there was going to be more of an opportunity for him to play out the field a bit. He was fantastic in Ashbourne last week, and he has shown his skills again here. His composure under the high ball is brilliant and that can be difficult when you have a few big men bearing down on you. He is very quick on his feet as well and he did brilliant cover work in behind the defence there."

O'Bric praised his lads for the intensity with which they put pressure on the Westmeath shooters but did conclude that the Royals gave up too many opportunities to the opposition on the night.

"I think Westmeath will be a little bit disappointed that when they got in one-on-one, they didn't really show much composure. To be fair, to our lads, they are very quick to get across and put pressure on the shot. We will look back on the video and probably conclude that there were too many chances handed up to them."

One of the big positives from Meath's victory on Wednesday evening was the spread of scores across the teamsheet. Midfielder, Michael McIvor had an impressive showing of 0-6, all of Meath's attackers got in on the action with two points each while wing-back Finn White also contributed a nice point.

"We scored 1-22 last week and we scored 0-19 this week and to be fair we had a good spread of scores this week. We have been working on ensuring that there is variety in our attacks and scores because that makes it a bit harder for the opposition to pin us down."

The games will continue to come thick and fast for the Meath u-20s and O'Bric is aware that the depth of his squad will be a very important factor as this championship progresses.

"It's a real sprint with a game every Wednesday until you fall. It will test the strength of our squad. There were a couple of lads that have come away from the Westmeath clash with knocks. Mattew Kealy, Cian Commons, John Harkin, and Eamonn Armstrong are all fairly sore and there will be question marks over their participation the next day. We have a lot of quality subs though that can do a job for us and we will probably be seeing some of them in action against Offaly next Wednesday."