Posts Tagged ‘Meath’
Louth and Meath contest the Leinster Senior Football this afternoon at Croke Park where there is a 2 o’clock throw in. These neighbouring counties along the River Boyne make for an unusual pairing in a competition which has been dominated by Dublin in recent years – however it would seem there is a changing of the guard in the eastern province and its the Royal County of Meath who are red hot favourites today at odds of 2/9. It’s 4/1 a Louth win in 70 minutes and we offer 9/1 about a draw.
Punters looking to our handicap will see a 5 point spread with Meath Even money to cover it, Louth are 10/11 with the 5 point start and its 10/1 a handicap tie – that’s Meath to win be exactly five points.
Joe Sheridan has lit up the Leinster championship this year with his goalscoring and he can be backed at 7/1 to score the opening goal today, or 9/4 to raise the green flag anytime during the game. He heads up the goalscoring markets alongside fellow Meath forward Shane O’Rourke, Stephen Bray and Cian Ward.
But its certainly not all about Meath today, you’d be hard pressed to find a better midfield pairing in the country at the moment than Louths duo of Brian White and Paddy Keenan. These two players will win plenty of ball, create chances and they are also well capable of taking scores too. Brian White is Louth’s expert from placed balls and we have pitched his points total at 3 and a half. You can take 8/11 that White scores 4 or more points throughout the game or evens that he goes under 4.
It’s sure to be a special day for Louth in particular and us bookies will certainly be cheering the underdog along in this provincial final, join us for in-play markets throughout the game.
My heart says Louth, my head and my bank manager say Holland. Okay, so it’s not a World Cup final that Louth are contesting on Sunday, but it sure as hell feels like it.
The Dutch may think that 1978 is a long time ago. Well, it’s not half as long ago as 1960. Actually, it is. Mathematically it is. About two-thirds as long ago, really. But I remember 1978, I remember the van de Kerkhof brothers and Johnny Rep and wondering why Johan Cruijff wasn’t playing (everybody was Johan Cruijff when we played in the field behind Peggy Burke’s house), and I remember Mario Kempes scoring through the ticker tape.
I don’t remember the 1960 Leinster final, unsurprisingly given that I was still a decade off existence, but there was always plenty of talk about the 1957 and the 1960 Louth teams when I was growing up. It always seemed like such a long time ago. And we’d traipse our way to Croke Park for the first round of the Leinster championship every year, against Offaly, against Carlow, we’d traipse in much hope and in little expectation, we’d buy our tissue paper red and white hats every year (they never lasted beyond July), we’d take our places in the Hogan Stand after a ham sandwich and a cup of tea in the canteen with the stand-up tables, where our grandfather would invariably succeed in getting us into the VIP area with the cushioned seats, we’d shout for Louth until our young lungs hurt, and we’d return home thinking at least the minors won.
My uncle used to back Louth to win the Leinster every year. He’d come home from the dogs on the Saturday night before the first round and he’d say he was on at 25/1, sometimes 33/1, and he would proceed to recite the draw. If they can only beat Carlow, then they meet the Westmeath camogie team, and then they’re into the semi-final against the Meath under-21s, and if they beat them then they’re in the final, or something. I think he backed them for the Leinster every year since 1960. Every year until this year, that is.
In fairness to him, he did ring me before the Kildare match and point out that the draw was in their favour this year again, that this could be the year, that they always have a chance against Kildare, whatever it is about Kildare, much more so than they do against Meath or Dublin, and that if they could manage to get over the Lilywhites, they had the winners of Westmeath and Wicklow in the semi-final. He wasn’t backing them this year though, he was going to put the mockers on them, it would be enough for him if they did well. And he rang me the day after they beat Westmeath. Turns out, it wasn’t.
You have to fear for them against Meath on Sunday, they are probably legitimate 9/2 shots, although spirits are high, and it is a final, so you just never know. That’s what the Dutch are saying as well, although Paul the octopus apparently chose Spain, so that’s not good. A friend told me yesterday not to worry about getting home from Croke Park in time to watch the World Cup final, that I’ll probably be leaving with about 15 minutes to go anyway.
He’s a Dub. I’m still thinking of a retort.
It’s been fully ten years since Meath and Offaly met in a championship match, a gap that will be bridged at 2pm this Sunday. The last time these sides met, it was in Croke Park and an excellent Offaly performance unseated the All Ireland champions on a 0-13 to 0-9 scoreline. Both counties have fallen from grace considerably since that match but this remains a tie with plenty of historical resonance.
Viewers of the championship action on RTE last Sunday would have been somewhat underwhelmed by the fare on offer, but assuming referee Derek Fahy can resist the urge to spoil the game with constant whistling for “illegal” handpasses, this could very well be an extremely enjoyable game from a viewing perspective. Both sides bring a fine set of attackers into the fray, and if the two management teams can resist the urge to counteract this by packing the defence, we could be in for a lot of scores. Even if Niall McNamee fails to make the starting Offaly fifteen, as is possible, there are plenty of scores in players like Ken Casey, Niall Darby, John Reynolds and others, while the Meath attacking unit is packed with quality. The absence of quality attackers like Jamie Queeney, David Bray and Brian Sheridan would severely impact on the chances of most counties, but the Royal county are still set to start with six excellent forwards.
Despite all this, goals have been very hard to come by for this Meath team. In their last nine games, six league matches and three challenge fixtures, they’ve scored two goals. They’ve scored plenty of points in that time, but the absence of pace in their attack means that they haven’t managed to take defenders out of the game and get enough clear looks on goal. Looking at the match ups against Offaly this weekend, they may have a size advantage in a few positions so it’s likely to be a direct approach from the Meathmen, but one that could run aground closer to the danger area with Scott Brady minding the house for Offaly.
Offaly scored nine goals in their league campaign and they’ll know that hitting the net at least once will be crucial in Portlaoise – possibly even twice. That might be a bridge too far, but they can accumulate a decent tally. This column’s suspicion is that they’ll do enough to at least stay within the three point spread, despite the widely held view that this could be an uncompetitive tie, but the safer bet could be over 29.5 total points at 4/5. 3pts at these odds is the recommended stake.
Ladbrokes are also offering betting on which team will register the highest tally this weekend, and while Offaly are intriguing at 11/1 for the reasons mentioned above, the best bet could be Louth at 4/1. Louth and Longford are two teams that have always played basic, traditional man on man football and both teams have plenty of good forwards who can score. Equally, neither team is over-endowed with man marking defenders and this could turn into a shootout very easily. Longford at 8/1 are not a bad selection either, but Louth are still a better team and they must be fancying their chances, particularly with Brian Kavanagh out and Paul Barden also doubtful. A 1pt bet on Louth to be the top scoring team at 4/1 is well worth consideration here.
For every county in Ireland bar Kilkenny, the national football league gets underway this weekend and the viewing public are set to get their first snapshot of how various teams are likely to fare in 2010. While many counties will continue to experiment to a certain degree in the league, the difference in intensity between this weekend and the preseason competitions is sure to be noticeable as teams look to get their season off to a decent start and take the pressure off the latter stages of the competition. For now we’re going to look at the games in division one and two, with the lower divisions to follow later.
Sunday’s clash between Kerry and Meath was initially pitched as a 4 point handicap game, with 3-10 and 2-7 freely available about the favourites for those who fancied a straight match bet, but the money has clearly spoken in the meantime and the weight of expectation is falling ever more heavily on the Kingdom’s shoulders. All across the industry Kerry are being punted, and it’s traditional for the favourite to be even more heavily supported the closer one gets to throw in time.
As we discussed in this column’s last post, the reasons behind this support is clear to see, but equally plain are some pretty strong reasons not to get involved in a straightforward match or handicap bet. However even if we take the four point line as correct, that still leaves Meath’s total points expectancy at around 13.5, or roughly 0.7 goals and 11.5 points.
Despite Meath featuring in an All Ireland semi final as little as two years ago and now returning to the same stage again, Off the Ground still remains to be convinced as to their place in the top tier of football teams in Ireland. Due to their heady reputation, opposing Meath has been a profitable enterprise in recent seasons, albeit not for their meeting with Mayo this year where yours truly was one of many burned by the combination of Meath resilience and dubious officiating. Still, the Royal County jersey commands respect and there have been times, this season included, where they haven’t played at a level appropriate to the respect afforded to them.
The problem with going out to oppose teams is that it’s not simply good enough to decide that a certain team is over-rated: you must have something to oppose them with. Mayo were unlucky in that injury robbed them of their twin-tower attack while the run of the ball certainly didn’t favour them, but nonetheless it’s difficult to say with any degree of certainty that Kerry are worth backing to cover the four point spread this week.
Last week there was some debate on this site regarding my recommendation of Meath to cover the handicap against Limerick. I remain convinced that the bet was the right thing to do and that it was only the extremely dubious second goal for Limerick that prevented Meath from winning with plenty to spare – though admittedly we’ll never know how things would have panned out in that case. (Stubborn to the last you see!)
However a winner is a winner, so for those that went against this column and backed Limerick with the points, fair play. Also, the nature of the game should leave no-one in any doubt that both sides were a long way off the standard that would be required to cause an upset against Mayo this weekend. Obviously Mayo’s wobbles when the finish line was in sight against Galway is a concern, however for an hour of the Connacht Final, John O’Mahony’s men looked like a competitive and polished outfit who had a clear and definite method to their play. They will need to step up their standard another bit and certainly play for the full seventy if they are to maintain their progression, but it’s fair to presume that O’Mahony will squeeze another bit out of his panel with every passing week.
Generally speaking, once the season enters into August, the fixtures that remain are usually easy enough to assess, with little or no question marks regarding form, team morale or any similar issues. The one exception to that game this weekend is Meath vs Limerick, and yet this game appears to offer the best value of the four knockout senior football championship fixtures.
Meath come into this game with three comfortable wins under their belts, however the underwhelming nature of the opposition that they faced along the way leaves us very little wiser than we were in May as to their true potential. Waterford were never likely to cause them any problems while Westmeath were a disorganised and disgruntled outfit this year. Roscommon may yet turn out to be a better team than they looked in Navan last Saturday, but they had neither the experience nor the physique to really trouble the Royals. So that leaves us, with July almost consigned to history, unsure as to whether Meath are a significantly better team worthy of a place in the last eight, or simply a mid ranking county who happened upon a pleasant sequence of draws.
Last week, this column made reference to what we call “The Jersey Test”. The idea is very simple; when assessing teams, it’s no harm to remove any of the allure or stigma that is associated with a particular team and see if that affects your reading of the game. Meath footballers are the perfect example of just such a team. Over the years they have beaten, battered and bruised so many teams into submission that the mere uttering of their name evokes an automatic level of respect.
