Pride in Meath jersey spurred players on, says relieved Barry

WILL the real Meath stand up. Or, should that be Louth?

Sharply contrasting form from the teams over the 70 minutes in Croke Park yesterday perplexed the two managers, both sets of players and, most of all, the Louth supporters who predominated at yesterday’s opening game in the Bank of Ireland Leinster football championship.

And, while Eamonn McEnaney was at a loss to say how the challenge from the Division Two League champions disintegrated in the second-half, the man who replaced the legendary Sean Boylan offered a simple explanation.

“I just asked them to go out and play with a pride in the Meath jersey. It was lacking in the first-half,” Eamonn Barry said. “And, happily they did that.”

He had no doubt that it was essentially about Meath improving — and not a matter of Louth collapsing. Basically, his players started playing better. And, they started to carry out the “functions” they had been instructed to follow.

McEnaney’s reasoning was similar, except in reverse. “We stopped playing the type of football we had been playing,” he commented. “I was very happy with the first half, but terribly disappointed with the second. I really haven’t got an explanation at this stage.”

One thing that the two managers did agree on was the significance of Louth missing a goal early in the second half. Meath, at that stage, looked “a bit fragile”, McEnaney felt. If the ball had gone into the net he would have been talking about playing Wexford in the second round.

Barry’s view was that “it was probably the turning point”. He was not prepared to look beyond the Wexford game, responding to a comment that Meath were on the “weaker” side of the draw by pointing out that had lost in the League in Wexford Park.

Agreeing that a tally of 16 wides over the two halves was worrying, he accepted it had been important to make a good start to the second half.

“Our first-half display was more down to complacency and a lack of effort — maybe an attitude, ‘we’ll take Louth,’ rather than going out and doing it on the field. After that, the lads really upped their workrate.”

McEnaney tried hard to look on the positive side — that if they had managed to get the goal they would have gone six points clear and the game would have been over. “Because we weren’t scoring, it became a major problem. We had chances, including two 45s. All of these things add up.

“I never said we were going to win the championship, but I thought we had a great chance today — and we showed that in the first half. But, we have to play for two halves.

“It is a step up from Division Two, but we looked like the Division One team in the first half. That’s not what beat us. In the second half we didn’t perform. And we lost our way around the middle of the field.

“A goal would have given us the confidence. Louth are a team that hasn’t been winning games — they won three League games in two years. You just don’t banish all of these things overnight.

“I think a few of them came back today to a certain extent.”