Westmeath badly in need of finding joy this Saturday
We all need to make our own fun in these depressing times. A fellow-scribe and I amused ourselves in Kilcormac, Callan and Belfast during a depressing five days for Westmeath fanatics (which we both are) by being, let’s just say, less than complimentary about the return for a second series of RTÉ’s alleged comedy, 'Finding Joy'.
Of course, comedy is a personal taste, with some people merely tittering when others are rolling over with belly laughs, and vice versa. However, sometimes even a titter is impossible and there was certainly no post-match tittering in the resplendent Offaly and Kilkenny avenues, or the picturesque Antrim ground, between last Wednesday night and Sunday afternoon (and with just a rerun of Finding Joy awaiting after a long journey home, it would prove to be a titter-free Sabbath).
A ten-point loss to Offaly’s U20 hurlers was roughly what was anticipated for an understrength team – albeit Covid-19 dictated that the hosts were also short a few key players. A defeat was expected for Westmeath's ever-improving camogie players – but not by 31 points. Most pundits predicted a win for Westmeath's senior hurlers against a Covid/injury-hit team in saffron and white – but the outcome was a 19-point chastening.
Do the maths yourselves (Countdown is still worth watching if it clashes with Finding Joy) and that’s a whopping 60 points in total, with the very easy division exercise making it 20 per game.
Our old friend Covid may well dictate that Offaly’s U20s don’t play again, but the brief campaign of Kevin O’Brien’s charges is definitely over, albeit many will hope - yours truly included - that the former Clonkill manager will continue to be involved with Lake County teams in some capacity or other.
However, for Johnny Greville and Shane O’Brien the next two weekends will, hopefully, be a chance to ‘get back on the horse’ with home games to come against Waterford (Sunday, November 8) and Kerry (Saturday, October 31) respectively. The equestrian line was used by an understandably-gutted O’Brien shortly after 3.30pm last Sunday, after what was a desperately disappointing display by the men in maroon and white at the St John’s pitch.
Indeed, the Dubliner said very little else, such was his post-match dismay, initially stating that “for the first time ever” he would prefer not to conduct a post-match interview.
However, O'Brien went on to speak very briefly, as follows: “We’re bitterly disappointed. Our preparation has been badly hampered, but I’m not here to make excuses. We had eight fellows out during the past few weeks and our lack of game time showed today. We just have to get back on the horse for the game against Kerry next Saturday.”
It has been correctly pointed out to me since that, despite the undoubted pain in doing so, both Tomás Ó Flatharta and Tom Cribbin fulfilled their usual media work after almighty championship hammerings at the hands of Dublin during their spells in the football bainisteoir bib.
The ever-increasing social media coverage, allied to live streaming of Gaelic games from various sources, has greatly lessened the inquisitive texts and calls that this scribe receives on the night I return from an away game at the top or bottom of the country. ‘Melodramatic Mick’ and ‘Nasty Nick’ on various comment sites have a field night when Westmeath are badly beaten. At the outset, this is particularly unfair to amateur players for whom the pandemic has made playing sport more of a chore than would normally be the case. ‘Over The Top Oliver’ seldom thinks of this before bashing all and sundry from the comfort of his living room. Shame on him and his ilk is what I say.
Be that as it may, we all hate losing so badly, and O’Brien and his high-powered backroom team will have a lot of soul-searching to do ahead of the visit of the Kingdom to TEG Cusack Park next Saturday. Westmeath had got the measure of Antrim in recent years, albeit generally by small margins, but as recently as last summer (the ‘normal’ time for championship hurling) a Shane Conway-inspired side in the famous green and gold jerseys deservedly left the same venue with a brace of Joe McDonagh Cup points in the bag.
Two major pre-match talking points in Corrigan Park were the inclusion of a goalkeeper unknown in these parts, Eoin Skelly, at one end of the pitch, while at the other end one of the best-known – and universally respected – men ever to wield a camán in maroon and white, Brendan Murtagh, was lined out at full-forward. The latter’s class is not in question, but Father Time has no teacher’s pets and it is worrying that a 38-year old should be needed, even as a likely one-off to try and win the tier two competition at the third attempt.
Indeed, despite the unpleasant nature of his debut, all right-minded people will wish the Na Fianna netminder well if he has committed to the huge demands (now more complicated than ever) placed on the modern inter-county player. However, if a short-term solution was required to the (undoubted) goalkeeping problem which has beset the Lake County in recent years, Ringtown’s Pat Burke, a colleague of Murtagh in the very fine minor team of 1999, might have been worth a phone call, with his recent intermediate final display surely a testament to his all-round enduring sharpness.
However, it is not this columnist’s job to pick the Westmeath team and one can only hope that O’Brien, a very pleasant man in one-on-one dealings, can get the players’ heads right in the next few days. If not, the hope that Westmeath's hurlers can emulate the county's minor footballers in 1963 and 1995 by appearing in one of the GAA’s two blue riband occasions (even if hawks and Hawkeyes will outnumber human beings in Croke Park on December 13) will have evaporated very quickly.
Westmeath Gaels may have taken Killian Doyle’s prolific scoring feats for granted, and the team must plough on without the Raharney man, for now at least.
Oh to find some joy in Mullingar next Saturday at 1.30pm!
– Gerry Buckley