Mangan and Flanagan feature in Irish International Rules win

Former Westmeath Senior footballers Alan Mangan and Martin Flanagan put on the Irish jersey for the first time, as they helped the Irish Gaelic Masters International Rules team to victory over their Australian counterparts in Denn GFC in Cavan on Saturday.

Mangan scored two overs and two behinds while his Tyrrellspass counterpart netted a goal, and also fired an over, as Ireland led throughout the game, before recording an 87-29 win.

Two players from each of the 16 Gaelic Football Masters county teams were chosen for the Irish squad, including two from the London team.

With two players out injured, the squad rotated 15 players for each quarter, with Mangan and Flanagan on separate line-ups.

Mangan says it was great to be involved.

"It was brilliant, it was a great honour to be picked first and foremost along with Martin, who would be a good friend of mine," he said.

"It was a challenging experience, but one that we took really seriously. We trained for the last three or four weeks, and everyone was looking forward to the game, and thankfully we came out the right side of the result, but those Australians were hardy bucks!"

The quarters rotated between using the oval AFL ball and a Gaelic football.

Despite using the AFL ball in the opening quarter, Ireland got off to a strong start.

"We were 12-nil up at one stage, and they came back 12-9 at us, which was good for us because we used the oval ball in the first quarter," Mangan said.

"It was good that we actually took the lead, and then we pulled away with the round ball in the second quarter.

"In fairness to them they showed a bit of determination and came back at us in the third quarter, but it was the use of the round ball that really pushed it home for us."

For both Mangan and Flanagan, their involvement in the International Rules team came about as a result of being involved with the Westmeath Masters team.

It's Mangan's first year involved with that Lake County set-up, having turned 40 in June.

He says the Masters is a great idea.

“We had a good battle against Laois a few weeks ago, and they ended up beating us by four or five points, but we knew a lot of lads from playing against them. It's great to have something to do when you get to our age.

“A lot of lads are still playing with the club, but unfortunately a lot of us don't make the starting 15 for our clubs. It's great to have something to keep the mind occupied and it's a situation that you aren't just packing in football and really forgetting about it straight away. You get a number of years out of the Masters as well.”

Mangan is still masterful at club level though, featuring strongly in Castletown Geogheghan's 0-17 to 1-11 win over Turin in the Westmeath Intermediate Hurling Championship at TEG Cusack Park on Sunday.