the reason Myler left Dublin out Rock was because he mentioned the 4 teams being relegated and dublin arent one of them. Dont feel left out!
[quote=“therock67”]Quotes from Meyler today:
Funny how he forgot to mention Dublin as one of the counties Nickey Brennan should be looking after.
He’s angling towards the argument that Offaly made last year - it wouldn’t be good for the game if we go down. It’s a reasonable point but really it’s a ridiculous time to be making it. If you don’t think there should be 4 teams relegated the time to protest is back when that is decided, not when you end up being one of those teams.
I’d little sympathy for Offaly’s plight last year because they were happy enough with a closed shop when they were one of the big teams. If you want to allow progression and development then you need to have promotion and relegation. Doesn’t mean the structure is perfect but any qualms Meyler had about that should have been voiced ages ago - this just looks like sour grapes.
Anyway as others have said on here their real beef should be with Cork.[/quote]
Saw Meyler on the news on RTE2 last night - thats where those quotes were taken from I think. He had the look for a defeated man making one last plea just for the sake of it. Looked like he was already accepting his feat.
The word this morning is that the Wexford county board are saying nothing until the outcome of their earlier objection last week about the Cork thing is responded to by the CCC or whoever it was lodged with.
I know that - the point I’m making is that if he didn’t have Wexford in there, it would be Dublin in its place and then you wouldn’t have heard anything from him. Bringing up Antrim, Offaly and Laois was a pathetic attempt to pretend he cares about the game as a whole but the reality is he’d be happy to condemn anyone else to relegation instead of Wexford, irrespective of the development work going on.
yeah I know. To be honest, its all a cop out really. Wexford knew at the start of the year that 2 teams were relegated. Now that it has happened to the team there is no point whinging about it. I’d say most of the county is resigned to that fact, and the only other people that most supporters would be pissed off with is the GAA ruling committee and Cork. The wuotes about all the work Wexford are doing was a bit much alright. Its not as if any other county is doing less or more, or not that it should matter either. Its results on the pitch that define your league position
I’m actually happy enough with how the leagues will work from next season. Promotion and relegation is key to avoiding a closed shop and making the games as competitive as possible. It’s our own problem that we were relegated and will be playing the likes of Westmeath and Roscommon but next season’s 8-team divisions 1 and 2 are better in my opinion than a 9-team division 1 where the bottom team has the cushion of a play-off game against the winner of division 2 or something and can still stay up . If we had issues with the format we should have expressed what they were back at the start of the campaign. Similarly, though Cork are in breach of league rules I don’t like the way we only appealed once it became clear we could be relegated.
I was chatting to Bandage Senior last night about the U-21 footballers qualifying for the Leinster Final and I said I couldn’t remember the last time we were in one. He told me it was in 1988 against Offaly and it went to either 1 or possibly 2 replays before we lost. Apparently I was at these games too but in fairness I was only 6 at the time. It would be a smashing achievement to win this, especially as the group didn’t really display much form when they were minors. In many ways, it shows the importance of having the right people involved in managing and coaching the teams.
Havent the energy to copy and paste them all but there’s a good few articles here this week worth readin
Kieran Shannon’s a bit of a serious / earnest head at times but I agree with everything he says about Wexford and the hurling league in general in this piece from today’s Tribune:
Wexford’s words don’t mirror true picture
Analysis Kieran Shannon
IT’S been a pathetic (more than another sad) week for hurling but one figure emerged from it with his honour not just intact but enhanced.
Last Monday Jim Greene was phoned by a reporter.
His Carlow team had topped their section in Division Two yet because of next year’s restructured league, wouldn’t be gaining promotion to Division One. Cue, you would have thought, the normal hurling man’s rant about his team being denied the chance to play against “the likes of Kilkenny, Cork and Tipperary”.
"No, I’m fine with that, " said Greene.
“There’s no one going up from Division Two but staying there is a form of promotion because the four teams that are coming down from Division One are all on the next rung up. I know there have been complaints but for me, next year’s system of eight teams in every division is better and much fairer all round.”
Cue instead a reporter’s dropped jaw. Of course, what Greene said was just common sense. Eight teams is a better gauge of your standing, the new system is fair, and his own team, for now, will be better served avoiding “the likes of Kilkenny, Cork and Tipperary”.
Yet just like his fellow Waterford man John Mullane’s acceptance of his suspension four years ago, there was something astonishing and refreshing about such a straightforward, responsible, outlook. A hurling man had resisted the default setting of his ilk . . . always assume the role of victim. We keep hearing hurling is “in crisis” compared to “the '90s”. It’s not. For most of the '90s hurling was a six-games-a-year sport; last year we got that many games between August 4 and 12 alone. When Clare and Wexford were winning All Irelands, Waterford were less competitive than those counties are now; now Waterford bring as much excitement, just not as many Liam McCarthys, to the party than those sides ever did. Beyond '98, hurling has as many competitive teams as it has ever had; one just happens to be more competitive than the others.
Justin McCarthy’s right. The best hurlers are now. The game has a lot of problems but perhaps its biggest is its perpetual victim complex.
Wexford have had the violins out in force this week. They’ve blitzed the media, appealed to the CCCC, the CAC, and now look like they’re going to the DRA. They might even win there. The authorities havemade a hash of this year’s league and the fallout from the Cork strike while even Wexford tend to win one out of every three battles.
But what are they actually complaining about? They had the chance to claim 10 points this year and accumulated three. Surely they knew at the start of the year that wouldn’t be enough to ensure safety.
Of course, the Rebels should have been penalised further, possibly even by demotion, but how did that affect Wexford’s level of performance?
Wexford still played their five games, winning only one; relegation form in any man’s language. They would still have finished behind Cork and Waterford if those two had ever played in February. The truth is no one got Wexford relegated but themselves.
"We need to look at the big picture here, " implored John Meyler (right). "Wexford, Offaly, Laois and Antrim need to remain in Division One. We’ve competed with every team in Division One this season except for Kilkenny.
Sure, last Sunday we were five minutes away from a quarter-final. Now we’re in Division Two.
It is of paramount importance to maintain the development process in these counties. This cannot be done in Division Two."
We hear this type of talk all the time. It’s the kind of language hurling men routinely spiel out to Dessie on the radio and Marty on the telly, because intuitively they know the reflex of most other hurling men is to nod “He’s right, you know, he’s right.”
But if you take a second look at what he said, it’s a porous argument. He says Wexford were competitive in every game bar one. Well, every year in football teams who are competitive in every fixture get relegated. Ask the Wexford footballers of 2006. But they know that’s life, that’s (virtually every other) sport, and they’ve got on with it.
And, yeah, Meyler’s team might have been looking at a quarter-final with five minutes left in Cork but that just highlighted the vagarious nature of a six-team division which he wants retained.
“Wexford, Offaly, Laois and Antrim need to remain in Division One.” Why? Why should they stay aloof from the Carlows and Kerrys when they keep losing heavily to “the likes of Kilkenny, Cork and Tipperary”?
Meyler is a good hurling man who last year proved himself a good coach . . .
Wexford happened to even beat “the likes of Tipperary” . . . but if he was to look at the “big picture” he’d see that for years now a 12-team Division One has featured too many one-sided games that has devalued the competition, and by extension, the sport itself.
An eight-team first division will be good for hurling (and a seven-team one would be even better, giving Wexford . . .
and Carlow . . . another decent side to encounter). It could even be good for Wexford. In '96 they started out in Division Two. That season Liam Griffin gave his players a poem about honesty and personal responsibility, The Man in the Glass. It’s fitting now. If Wexford hurling men want to solve their problems, they should go to the mirror, not the DRA.
Lads, has the double header in Wexford Park on Sunday been confirmed yet? I’m thinking of going down on Saturday evening which would be 4 weekends at home in a row, the likes of which hasn’t been seen since I was a student without the cash to fund weekends on the lash in Dublin. I was going to go to Celtic-Motherwell on Saturday but I’m still feeling the effects of Wrestlmania on Sunday night (slept through two alarms this morning and was terribly late for work) and I’m abroad tomorrow trying to stabilise a rocky world economy and simply won’t be able for a day-trip to Glasgow on Saturday. Our first Leinster U-21 Football Final since 1988 deserves priority and 'twould be great to win it.
According to the leinstergaa site it has been Bandage. Would be worth your while throwing your eye on the Wexford Supporters site for this sort of stuff instead of us having to spoonfeed you!!
LEINSTER U-21 F.C. SEMI-FINAL 2008
FINAL
Sunday, 6th April 2008
Wexford Park (3.30pm) - Wexford v Kildare
ESB LEINSTER MINOR HURLING CHAMPIONSHIP 2008
Sunday, 6th April 2008
Pairc Tailteann (3.00pm) - Meath v Westmeath
Aughrim (3.00pm) - Wicklow v Kildare
Wexford (2.00pm) - Wexford v Kilkenny
Can’t access it in work unfortunately! We need to make this fortress Wexford Park on Sunday. I personally plan on bringing a rucksack full of implements to throw at the opposition ranging from bricks, iron bars, coins, pigs’ heads and the likes.
You’ll fit in well with all the other Wexford town people there so Bandage!!
i remember an auld lad saying to me above in croke park a couple of years ago about a few roudy wexford supporters “only two things ever came out of wexford, strawberries and knackers, and they aint strawberries”
oh god, the hillarity! I never heard that one a million times before:rolleyes:
From GAA.ie
Ryan recalls Banville to Wexford attack
Apr 03, 2008
Thursday, April 3
Wexford will have to do without the services of underage star Shane Roche for their Allianz NFL Division 3 top-of-the-table clash with Fermanagh on Sunday.
Roche will instead line out for the county’s U21 side who face Kildare in the provincial decider at Wexford Park.
PJ Banville returns to the side in place of Roche and will line out at right half-forward.
The only other changes from the side that defeated Leitrim last weekend are positional ones with Niall Murphy and Colm Morris switching places in defence.
Wexford (NFL v Fermanagh) - A. Masterson; N. Murphy, P. Wallace, B. Malone; A. Morrissey, D. Murphy, C. Morris; B. Doyle, C. Byrne; PJ Banville, R. Barry, A. Flynn; C. Lyng, J. Hudson, M. Forde.
so you going to these games then bandage? i’ll start getting the missiles ready asap if so. i optimistically predict two shock wins for wexford in an intimidating Wexford park.
Yep, I’m going to come down on Saturday evening ready to unleash hell inside our stadium. I’m not sure if Farmer’s coming down to Wexford Park this Sunday though.
Could be one of the greatest weekends for Wexford GAA if all 4 teams win their games. U21 footballers in Leinster Final, Senior footballers, Minor Hurlers and Loreto Wexford in the All-Ireland Colleges Final. A week off work to celebrate may be required.
Looking forward to these games in Wexford Park now, especially the football. It’ll be a big test as Kildare have beaten Meath and Dublin en route to the final and we’re without one of our two senior players, Ben Brosnan, who’s suspended. We’re 2/1 on Paddy Power despite home advantage with Kildare at 1/2 but I’m hoping the lads can perform above themselves and bring some silverware to Wexford. C’mon the boys of Wexford!
Two disappointing defeats in Wexford Park but I’ve been a lot more depressed after losses in the past because the effort and commitment couldn’t be faulted at all.
We lost 0-10 to 0-6 against Kildare in the Leinster U21 Final in a game played in ridiculous conditions. At different stages it snowed, pissed rain and was sunny and there was a kind of a monsoon at one stage too and the wind was extremely strong.
The pivotal moment was when Daithi Waters, who was the dominant player in midfield up to then, was sent off for a second yellow card halfway through the second half when there was only two points in it.
We couldn’t get enough possession to pressurise them in the last 15 minutes and they knocked over a couple of insurance points.
I’d never seen a team of the physical stature of Kildare. All of their players were huge with the exception of one nippy corner forward and their power and strength wore us down in the latter stages.
We fought all the way though and it was one of those defeats where you can’t fault anyone.
We lost the minor hurling by 3-12 to 0-15 after leading by 0-15 to 1-9 with about 7 minutes left and that was pretty galling. That said it’s a round robin format and we have the opportunity to learn lessons from today and come back stronger. We played some excellent hurling and were the better side up to that final few minutes.
Kilkenny emptied their bench and two of their replacement forwards did untold damage in the last 15 minutes. Our lads gave their all and I was a bit disappointed we didn’t freshen things up earlier, especially with Liam Dunne, Tom Dempsey and Billy Byrne (a super-sub himself) in charge. We used one sub in the first half to replace our wing forward who couldn’t get into the game and then we didn’t make any more changes until the final couple of minutes.
There was also a period in the first half where Kilkenny moved one of their inside forwards back to midfield as we had a stranglehold there and were playing with the breeze. We were 0-6 to 0-2 up at the time and playing well but their spare man began to get on the ball and they knocked over a couple of long range points from the half forward line.
I was quite annoyed, as was stevie G beside me, that we didn’t react at all to this for a good 10 minutes and literally left our corner back on his own in the corner. Even if we didn’t want to leave 2 vs 2 inside and didn’t want the corner back to follow the guy right out then we at least should have instructed the corner back to move into a central area in front of the two inside forwards where he could stop ball going into them. Our selectors belatedly reacted but I couldn’t believe how long it took for them to gather around and sort it out. I don’t know if I’m being harsh but I expected better from those involved.
As I said, we played very well and the half back line was excellent as were a few of the other lads around the park. If we channel our disappointment the right way then we’re more than capable of coming back and beating them later on.
Finally, kudos to our senior footballers who salvaged the day with another superb comeback away from home up in Fermanagh. I believe Matty Forde (who has ruined himself according to Farmer) kicked 8 or 9 points as they came from 6 down to draw in the second half.
Come on Wexford!