O’Brien in call for league overhaul

Westmeath senior hurling manager Shane O’Brien has called for a revamp of current National Hurling League structures as his charges face a return to the league’s second tier in 2022.

Despite his 14 troops letting a nine-point lead against Laois slip in an agonising fashion in Portlaoise last Saturday evening (see pages 68/69), O’Brien had nothing but praise for his Division 2-bound panel.

The Dubliner stated at the outset: “We’re coming down from a high after last week. I certainly won’t be faulting or criticising any player. I thought they were absolutely immense from start to finish. Small little things went against us, key moments of the game.

“I won’t lie, our preparation wasn’t ideal this week. We wanted the lads to enjoy themselves after the win against Kerry last Saturday. It’s a huge ask playing four weekends in a row and, ultimately, we faded a bit towards the end.”

The dismissal of wing back Aaron Craig in the 35th minute put huge extra pressure on his maroon and white-clad colleagues. The losing bainisteoir said that he didn’t see the incident, before adding: “I am very anxious to see that again. The general consensus is that there wasn’t much to it.

“However, even though we were a man down, I thought our use of the ball was excellent. We tried to focus on giving the right ball in and giving it to a man in a better position, and I thought we did that very, very well.

“We played it through the lines very well but, ultimately, a few decisions went against us. And that cost us. The 14 men had given so much, we ran short in the end.”

Westmeath spurned a last-gasp lifeline when veteran Derek McNicholas saw his rasping shot from the penalty spot go narrowly over, rather than under, the crossbar. In this regard, O’Brien opined: “Some days penalties go in, some days they don’t. I certainly won’t be criticising any of the lads.

“Winning the Joe McDonagh Cup after what they had been through in the league campaign, I couldn’t speak highly enough of their character. The spirit within this group is just exceptional.

“It’s going to be a challenge playing Division 2 hurling ahead of the Leinster championship, but I haven’t even thought about that yet. I wasn’t looking past today. Obviously, though, it’s not an ideal situation to be in.

“Personally, I think there has to be a revamp of the structures in the league. Where we were placed in 1A, there was definitely an imbalance in the two divisions. There needs to be an overhaul of all of these groupings.

“The scoreboard might have told a different story, but we would have been very happy with many aspects of those games where we were playing in patches.

“And it all came together last week against Kerry, and even out there today it showed what this group is capable of,” he concluded.