O'Rourke frustrated with performance against Fermanagh

There was an air of deflation about Colm O'Rourke when he spoke to the media after this afternoon's NFL Div 2 draw with Fermanagh.

It wasn't so much the result that had him down, it was more about the performance.

"It was a disappointing performance even more so than the result. We had expected a better performance and I suppose if you get a good performance you probably get the results," he said.

"I don't think the performance probably deserved much more than a draw. We can look at it as a point lost or a point gained but I think maybe it was a point gained."

Of even greater concern than the dropped point for O'Rourke is the fact that up to 15 of his players now have to turn their attentions to colleges football during the week and that will impact on preparations for next Saturday's trip to the Athletic grounds to take on Armagh in round two of NFL Div 2.

"We have 13 players I think involved in Sigerson next week. Four in Maynooth, four in DCU, three in UCD and two in TUD," said the manager.

"Shane Walsh came off during the week with DCU, so we were reluctant to start him today. Eoghan Frayne came off playing with Maynooth. Diarmuid Moriarty got injured last week with UCD.

"It's actually a bigger problem this week. We only had two teams playing during last week, but next week the four teams are all playing on Wednesday. One in Belfast, one in Limerick and one in Galway. So on top of us waiting on those players who have to play a game, they have a long journey to come home after and 72 hours later we're in Armagh.

"With two others involved in fresher football, I think there's 15 on the panel that could be in action next week in the middle of the week.

"It's a bit unfair, it's something I've said before but anyway we have to make the best of it now. That's the number. It means that really we won't have any proper training next week.

"Probably Armagh will be a different type of game next Saturday. They'll probably be less defensive. I don't know how that's going to suit us.

"We'll have a look now at their game tonight when they play Louth and see what sort of a formation they have.

"Our biggest issue at the moment is looking after our own players.

"Some of them have played five competitive matches in the last three weeks. By next Saturday night, some of them will have played seven competitive games in less than 20 days. That's tough going on anybody.

"Other counties are affected, but our age profile is such on the team that we obviously are more unfavourably affected by the Sigerson competition. Kieran Donnelly said to me that they had two players involved, so that's the way it is.

"There's no point in moaning about it, we just have to get on with it."

Reflecting on the draw with Fermanagh O'Rourke was asked what the mood in the dressing room was like and he admitted that it was a quiet place.

"I said to the lads, we can look at it two ways. You can be disappointed, and there's no harm in that. They were disappointed, very, very disappointed. I said, that's life, we have to pick it up," he said.

"There was no shouting or anything like that, we were calm. These are good lads, they work hard. Their own disappointment and the quietness of the dressing room showed how they felt and that they were unhappy with their own performance.

"I wasn't going to come in and kick them when they were down. I just reminded them that we have a big game next week and we have to get our heads up and get on with it.

"We have six more games, six more opportunities, so we look forward and we have to be confident and optimistic."

So just where and why did it go wrong for Meath in a game they held high expectation from? Was the tricky breeze a factor or was the lack of composure and experience at key moments crucial in determining the outcome.

"It (the wind) was blowing over to the edge of the terrace and it probably was a bit tricky. We were disappointed that we didn't kick on once we got level," bemoaned the Meath boss.

"Every time we seemed to get into a position where we looked like we were going to push on, we made some silly errors. We had good attacks, but the ball was turned over and they went up and got a score.

"We were under pressure to always come back from behind. It would have been nice to get one or two up and we would have been able to dictate, but again, that's the way it's going to be.

"These are a young group of players and there are going to be a lot of very disappointing performances before they get the experience to go at it hard day in and day out.

"We have to take into account that even since the Tailteann Cup we were missing five of that team and they are experienced players like Ronan Ryan, Padraic Harnan and James McEntee who did add that bit of experience and Jordan Morris.

"We're trying to do a lot in a very short space of time with a group of players apart from Donal Keogan and Ronan Jones who have little or no experience.

"There's going to be very disappointing days on the voyage."

O'Rourke admitted that he expected Fermanagh to be very defensive and that his side had worked on that aspect of the game, but he also lamented Meath's own missed opportunities

"We had worked hard on it (breaking down Fermanagh's defence) because we knew the way they were going to set up. We had looked at their games against Monaghan and Antrim in the McKenna Cup so it's not as if we went in blind to it.

"We had looked at the tapes of those games. Fermanagh set up very defensively. That's their style and that has served them well and it was up to us to get to grips with it and we didn't do very well on that front.

"That was a feature of their McKenna Cup games and again we worked on things but it's easy working on things in training, but then to put them in practice in the actual game, sometimes it doesn't work out and that's the way it is with young players.

"They're going to make plenty of mistakes but they're going to keep at it and we look forward now to Armagh.

"We had three great goal chances. We probably should have gone for the kill on a couple of occasions in the second half. That's what we needed. We needed to get in front so that they couldn't lie back as much as they did. If we were in front they would have had to come out and play and it would have made life easier for us.

"That was up to us to sort out that puzzle and we didn't do very well on it.

"Of their 1-5 that they got in the first-half, they got 1-4 from balls that they intercepted when we were attacking and they counter-attacked quickly and got their scores from it.

"So that was certainly the way they punished us in the first half, particularly the goal where we gave away the ball and they attacked quickly and we didn't cover back in time."

While it was a disappointing performance and result O'Rourke was please with the performance of a number of players, including top scorer Eoghan Frayne. However, he was wary of the amount of game time facing the young Summerhill man.

O'Rourke also gave an update on some of the long term injuries.

"It's going to be a good while more before Jason Scully, Jordan Morris and Conor Gray are back. So it doesn't look as if we're going to have any extra players for next Saturday night," he said.

"It was an excellent return from him (Eoghan Frayne) and again, he's another player involved in Sigerson with Maynooth. He came off in the game against UCC. He got very tired and was beginning to cramp up.

"It's asking a lot of him again to go today, go Wednesday, go next Saturday again. So, that's why we were taking him off there at the end because the long-term welfare of the players is more important than anything else to us.

"Darragh (Campion) did a lot of good things (in the number six role), but we certainly got caught out badly on numerous occasions where we probably were too far up the field, but again, he hasn't played much there.

"He hasn't played anything really in 12 months since he had the operation on the scaphoid. So, he's learning. He's only back since December and he'll get better.

"We have to do the best we can with what we have. If we look three months down the road, we probably could see that we'd have a lot of extra players available, but for who knows, maybe another two or three could get injured in the meantime. We're not banking on anybody. We're looking to the fellas who are there to try and get more out of them," concluded the manager.