Provincial ambitions remain the same for McEntee

Since Sean Boylan departed as Meath manager at the end of the 2005 season, Meath have seen five managers come and go. Of that quintet only Mick O'Dowd lasted longer than two campaigns and only Eamonn O'Brien managed to capture any silverware of note.

O'Dowd did lead Meath to promotion from NFL Div 3 in 2013 and there have been three O'Byrne Cups in that spell (2006, 2016 and 2018), but success has not been a frequent visitor to these Royal shores.

Andy McEntee took over at the end of 2016 after Meath had survived by the skin of their teeth in NFL Div 2 and had been beaten by Dublin by 10 points in a provincial semi-final and by Derry at the first hurdle in the qualifiers.

A raft of injuries and retirements left O'Dowd lamenting hard luck and McEntee with a huge rebuilding job to do and it is fair to say there have been plenty of ups and downs since - probably more downs than ups.

The highlight of McEntee's term so far was undoubtedly in 2019 when Meath topped Div 2 and won promotion back to Div 1.

Life in the top flight was difficult with the team failing to win a game in the behind-closed-doors campaign and so it was back to scrambling for highlights.

Last year when Meath rallied from a position of no-hope to running Dublin close in the Leinster SFC semi-final, the expectations and optimism of supporters started to grow again, could McEntee be finally turning a corner?

However a difficult league campaign has dulled the enthusiasm in the county again, but ahead of McEntee's sixth tilt at a Leinster SFC campaign he remains confident that his side can realistically challenge for provincial honours after 12 years without a title.

"Our aspirations are the same as they are at the start of every championship, we are going to try to win a Leinster championship," said the determined Meath manager.

"That has always been the case and whether people believe that is realistic or not that is totally up to them, but that has always been our goal and that won't change this year.

"I think that is a more realistic goal this year than before for a number of reasons. The quality and quantity of players we have capable of playing at that level is higher than it was and, there's not point in trying to avoid the obvious, it would appear that the playing pitch is a little bit more level than before.

"It is up to us get up to that level and see can we achieve what we set out to do," said McEntee.

With just nine wins from 19 championship outings as Meath boss, McEntee is well aware of the pressure on management and players to deliver on the expectations of fans.

He has set those standards and expectations for himself and no-one hurts more following a loss than McEntee himself.

Facing into another provincial campaign where everyone is written off as also-rans against Dublin, McEntee also believes that the new structures of a rushed, cramped season isn't of benefit to the game.

In the past counties have had eight or 10 weeks to prepare for championship following the end of the league, but Meath will face Wicklow next Sunday with just five weeks preparation under their belt after what was a difficult, inconsistent league campaign.

"I'm not hugely convinced that the new structure is beneficial to everybody. Maybe I'm getting away from the point, but I'm listening to a lot of clubs struggling to get players to commit because they know championship is not happening until later on in the year," said McEntee when asked about the shorter season and the problems that poses.

"As far as we are concerned, the league has become so important, especially for teams in Div 2, that you have to be on top of your game very early, at a time when the weather is particularly poor.

"The first three games of this years league for us were played in gale-like conditions and didn't show the best of our game, so I'm really not convinced that this structure is the best way forward.

"In a roundabout way of answering the question, I think most counties would like a little bit more time to prepare for championship, but it is what it is and it's the same for all.

"I don't know how fair it is on the likes of Laois or Wicklow who have to play this weekend and then the winners have to play again within seven days, I'm not a fan of the current structure," said McEntee when talking to the Meath Chronicle last Thursday.

Following the difficult NFL Div 2 campaign which saw Meath survive with a game to spare, McEntee agreed that there is huge pressure on the players and management to deliver positive results.

However, he insists that the window of opportunity to give a team like Meath the best possible chance of success is too small.

"There is huge pressure on management and on players to get results, especially in the league," he said.

"When playing the league you have limited time to prepare because there is a rule out there that you can't start your preparations and training until December for a league that starts in January.

"The definition of a bad rule is one that nobody abides by and there are certainly a lot of counties that don't abide by that rule.

"We didn't start back until December and we came back with a lot of injuries at that time. Lads came back from the club season injured and that means you don't get the work done that is necessary.

"Then when the league is done you don't get the work done to prepare properly for the championship because that window is so small. You can't get the work done either during the league because the games come thick and fast.

"I'd like to think that this will all be looked at again. We had a lot of injuries. We had seven players also involved with colleges and I think at one stage Mathew Costello and Shane Walsh had something like 11 games in the space of three weeks.

"That puts pressure on everybody because we are trying to be fair to those lads too. The Premier League soccer players don't play that amount of games in such a short period of time.

"This is all really down to a change of the structure and the introduction of the split season. I'm not sure if it is helping county teams or club teams."

Despite the hindrances that are standing in the way, McEntee is looking forward to next Sunday’s game and he believes that the players have been in great form.

Only finding out Meath's opponent seven days before the game, shouldn't be a further hindrance as McEntee insists Meath will look to focus on their own performances.

"We we got certain players back towards the end of the league you could see the difference. Unfortunately a lot of our physically bigger players weren't available to us in the early stages of the league and given the conditions that we played in would have liked to have had those bigger men available," said the manager.

"The conditions changed for the last few games, we got a number of players back and there was improvement. Since then the appetite has been good and the work rate, as always, has been very good in training, so we are looking forward to it.

"I don't think that (not knowing the opponent until Sunday evening) will be a hindrance. We are at the stage where we have got to focus on our own game.

"Certainly we will take into account who we are playing, but we have to look after ourselves and make sure we turn up in the right condition with the right frame of mind. That will be our priority," concluded McEntee.