O'Rourke laments Sigerson frustrations

Mounting injury problems a concern as Meath prepare for O'Byrne Cup semi-final

The Sigerson Cup conundrum continues to be an itch Colm O’Rourke has to scratch.

In a jovial mood after Saturday night's comfortable 2-13 to 1-7 O'Byrne Cup victory over Louth, the Meath manager continued to express his frustration at the timing of the Sigerson Cup and the impact it has on the welfare of his players.

With up to 14 of his panel eligible to play Sigerson Cup for their various college teams O'Rourke was very conscious of the game time he gave certain players and he implored the managers of the various different college teams to be as cautious with their players as he is.

O'Rourke admitted that he has been in touch with the managers of some of the college teams and he said he has received reassurances that the welfare of the players will be considered during the next few weeks which could see some members of the Meath panel play five games in 14 days.

"We were trying to get game time into a lot of lads and also it was a balancing exercise because there is 10 or 12 of them playing Sigerson next week and we didn’t want to give any of them more than 40 minutes," said O'Rourke.

"That is why there were so many substitutions, six at half-time and two straight away to get off all those lads who were playing because obviously there is a game next week for ourselves and they are going to be playing Sigerson Tuesday or Wednesday again.

You could end up with those fellas playing five games in 14 days if they played in all the matches.

“When people talk about player welfare it is not fair on them and this is the reason why I made the point last year about the Sigerson Cup, it is not a good time to have it.

“They (college managers) are independent and can do what they want but I have been in very regular communication with them and I was in communication with three of the managers yesterday where we have players that are injured and letting them know that we are only playing them for a short while and asking that they would do the same.

"They have all agreed to that so I will be looking at the games on Tuesday night and hoping that they are as good as their word.

"I have had constant communication and we are letting them know what we are doing with the players from a physio point of view. They have been co operative up to now."

That all sounds great in principle, but every manager is out for what's best for their team, so has O'Rourke faith that the college bosses will stick to their word?

"Well there is no comeback for us. We have encouraged them (Meath players) to play Sigerson. We asked them are they interested in playing Sigerson. A big number of them said they were and we said that is fine we will accommodate you as best we can," he said.

"Our training and match schedule isn’t going to put you under too much pressure we just ask that everyone else would do the same and hopefully we will have that.

"I think there is 14 eligible for Sigerson from our panel and in the past everyone though that Meath had thick, big, ignorant fellas who never went near University, at least now we have fellas going to college which is a good sign.

It is a good level of football and I played it myself and loved it, but you cannot play two competitions in opposition to each other. Something has to give.

"I have advocated for a while that the competition be played in December and January and that we would play all our pre-season in January and leave them with the colleges completely. I think that would be a useful compromise.

"The other compromise of course would be play the Sigerson Cup without county players but they are not going to do that.

"They argue that there are too many exams in December. Jack Flynn had an exam for three hours last Thursday night. Mick Murphy has an exam on Friday night, some other lads have exams on Tuesday before the game so no matter what time of the year these students are doing exams.

"It was much easier in the past when you did an exam in May and they let everybody through and we all got qualified. I can't understand all these lads taking college so seriously, I thought it was a time where you let your hair down and went to Coppers three or four nights a week," joked O'Rourke.

With so many players involved in Sigerson Cup O'Rourke has tailored his side's training programme accordingly with the idea of being fit, hungry and peaking at the ideal time.

"The very earliest that our season will end will be the middle of June now that we have qualified for the groups of four (for Sam Maguire). We can look ahead and know we are going to be involved in serious competition until June and hopefully beyond that, so we don't want to be killing fellas at this stay.

"We are taking it easy with those lads now in the hope that by April, May, June they will be really blossoming."

Reflecting on Saturday's win over Louth O'Rourke admitted that it was patchy in parts, but he was delighted to have players like Conor Gray, Darragh Campion and Shane Walsh back from injury.

He also gave an update on some of the other players still out of action, while giving his view on the experiment of new captain Ronan Jones at centre-back.

"I suppose it was a bit patchy, maybe Louth hadn’t as many regulars out as we had. I was very happy with the effort, enthusiasm and energy that the lads have brought both to training and to the first game. New lads came in and did quite well and overall we are quite pleased with progress at this time of the year," he said.

“They (Gray, Campion and Walsh) have worked really hard to get back. It is great to see the interest and enthusiasm, they have gone months and months training on their own and training with our lads and trained separately from the team since we came back so they have put in a huge effort and we have been very cautious with them.

"Obviously with Shane Walsh with such a serious injury and with Conor Gray we have probably being overly cautious and that is why we only gave them a short period of time.

"Darragh Campion had the (wrist) problem since the second game of the league last year so we are being very careful with them and hoping that the Sigerson managers would do the same with them. ,

"Obviously we have Ronan Ryan still out, he has a long term foot injury which meant he missed the last game of the club championship with Summerhill.

"Jordan Morris had an operation on his knee before Christmas, he is out for several months as well. Padraic Harnan isn’t back in with us yet so we still have plenty of problems. If we get everyone fit and well I think we would have quite a strong panel.

"Jason Scully had a double groin operation around November and is now back running. He is very much part of the panel and he will be in full training with us within a month.

"We have decided to look at it (Jones at centre-back) in the absence of Padraic Harnan at the moment. With Ronan Ryan also gone we are now missing our full-back and centre-back from last year's team, so somebody is going to have to fill the hole and Donal Keogan can only play in one position, good and all as he is.

"We'd like to have him in both positions, but he'll have to fill in in one and we'll have to get somebody else for the other position, so we decided we would try Ronan Jones there.

"If we had all our big men available around the middle of the field we would probably be able to do without him there because we have Daithi McGowan, Jack Flynn, Conor Gray and Cian McBride. We have a lot of big men around that area of the pitch anyway.

"It's just an experiment, but I do think Ronan Jones is better at midfield."

Meath will play Longford in the O'Byrne Cup semi-final next Friday night in Ashbourne (7.30pm) and O'Rourke believes it is decent preparation for a league campaign he and the players are taking very seriously.

"It (the league) is very important to us. We are taking the league very seriously, we have worked hard before Christmas," he said.

"We had a good break over Christmas, we gave the lads almost a fortnight off without doing anything. They only came back in on Tuesday night so maybe that is why we were very patchy tonight, but we are approaching the league very very seriously.

"I think everyone knows we want to be in contention for promotion because the long term future of this team has to be in Div 1 of the league if we want to be serious about Leinster and All-Ireland championships within the next few years," concluded the manager.