Kenny rejects Royal stalwarts’ work ethic criticisms

THERE’S a part of Seamus Kenny that understands why former Meath players, former All-Ireland winning Meath players that is, have been lining up to take pot-shots.

One win from six Allianz FL Division 2 games, losing the last four of them... it’s not as if they lack material. But Kenny, as captain, has taken exception to the level of criticism directed at them by ex-Royals in print and on the airwaves recently.

“There are two ways of looking at it. The lads who have been criticising us are the reasons why I play football in the first place. The boys from the ’87 and ’88 teams are people I look up to and admire,” he said.

“When they do criticise you, they probably have a right to because they’ve done it and it’s up to us to maintain what they have achieved in the past. But when it gets personal and they’re saying we haven’t been putting in the effort and stuff like that it is a bit hard to take because I see what the lads are putting in week-in, week-out, every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday night. That’s tough to take.”

Kenny wishes he knew where Meath were going wrong. But he doesn’t.

“Quite honestly, training has been going great and lads have been showing up well. Unfortunately, we’re not transferring that into matches. We’re only playing well in fits and starts and it’s not good enough because we’ve been caught short in all but one of the games.”

One thing’s for certain, Kenny absolves McEnaney of responsibility for them.

“Once you cross the line it’s up to the players. There’s only so much a manager can do. At this moment in time, what we’ve done so far hasn’t been good enough.

“In fairness to Seamus, he’s brought in an excellent backroom team and the mood in the camp is very good despite the losses. We’re just finding it hard to put our finger on what’s been going wrong and what we can do to improve.

“Obviously, with a new manager coming in and losing a few games there’s that bit more pressure but down through the years Meath had a love-hate relationship with the league.

“We’d often lost two or three games and it wouldn’t be as publicised as it has been during this campaign. In terms of losing games, we’ve only come away with one win from six games so it’s the toughest league campaign I’ve ever been involved with.”

On the point about McEnaney’s management team, Kenny only has positive things to say about Paul Grimley and Marty McElkennon.

“We’ve been lucky the last few years in Meath with the trainers we’ve had and Paul and Marty are no exception.

“Marty brings in a level of professionalism to the set-up that I have never witnessed before. He’s very methodical in all his preparations. Paul would be a less raw version of Marty yet he gets his point across. The general plan and organisation and variation of the set-up has been top quality.”