McCormack: ‘A draw might have been a fair result’
Gerry Buckley
After what was the first defeat of his short reign as Westmeath camogie manager, Darren McCormack was still at pains to express his admiration for his troops following their two-point defeat at the hands of Kildare in Hawkfield yesterday afternoon.
Caoimhe McCrossan hit ten points from frees for the Lake County, but it wasn’t enough to stop a wily Kildare from getting across the line, thanks to goals from Emma Kielty, top scorer Leah Sutton and Derbhile Byrne.
At the outset, the Castlepollard man stated: “It’s hard to come up with words after any defeat, but I’m still massively proud of the girls. The commitment they have put in since we came back training has been great.
“There’s going to be a dip in everybody’s performance at some stage, I suppose. The girls are the people out on the field and I know myself when you lose that you always feel you could have done more.”
When queried about two late goal opportunities spurned by his charges, the Castlepollard man opined: “We probably were the better team in the last quarter. We pushed forward a bit more, and yes we missed a couple of chances near the end.
“It might have been a little bit of an injustice to Kildare if we had won it and snuck it by a point. Looking at the game as a whole, I thought they were two very evenly-matched teams. A draw might have been a fair result.”
The age-old cliché that ‘goals win games’ was very apt at the impressive Lilywhite centre of excellence. In this regard, the losing bainisteoir stated: “They got one from a penalty and they got two from play. They did open us up a bit and generally we’ve been tight enough inside in our previous games.
“Teams will get goal chances and their three goals were the difference in the game. On the other side, we clocked up 17 points which would win you most games. Caoimhe (McCrossan) missed just one free in the whole game.”
Abacuses were in demand after the final whistle with calculations as to the most favourable outcome of the Meath v Dublin game being bandied about.
“To be honest, I wasn’t looking at that game, I was just looking at trying to get over the line ourselves. Hopefully, it can go the right way for us and we can reach the quarter-finals,” McCormack concluded.
As it transpired, Westmeath scraped through to the knockout stages by the narrowest of margins alongside Meath.
Yesterday’s Westmeath team was: Fiona Keating; Dearbhail McLoughlin, Emily McCabe, Laura Doherty; Amy Cully, Fiona Leavy, Megan Ennis; Muireann Scally, Méadbh McLoughlin; Caoimhe McCrossan (0-10f), Sheila McGrath (0-3), Emma Broughan (0-1); Aoife Doherty (0-1), Jade McKeogh, Hannah Core (0-2). Subs used: Aoife Boyle for McKeogh (h-t), Aisling Egerton for M McLoughlin (60 + 4), Shannon Dalton for Broughan (60 + 4).