Cooney on Louth defeat: ‘It was a frustrating day’
After enduring a somewhat unexpected setback in Ardee this afternoon, Westmeath senior football manager Jack Cooney regretted his charges’ inability to “to get any sort of a flow going” in what was a stop/start game spoiled by fussy officiating.
At the outset of his post-match media duties, the losing bainisteoir told Gerry Buckley: “I thought we played very well in the first half and I thought we were in a really good position at half-time. Whatever elements that were there, they were in our favour in the second half.
“We started the second half well and we went a point up, but we seemed to lose a grip on it then. The goal was a good boost for them and it got the crowd behind them.”
The crucial goal, scored by Conor Grimes in the 43rd minute, came when a placed ball from Louth’s ace free-taker Sam Mulroy came back off the upright and Grimes was alert to the rebound and fisted the ball past Jason Daly.
Cooney opined: “We were disappointed to concede that goal. As a defender, you are always very mindful of the ball coming back off the post. We responded well to it, but we never seemed to really get control of the game in the last quarter. We couldn’t get the scoreboard ticking over the way we would have liked.”
He added: “They defended very well at the end, and we couldn’t really get a shot away. The ref blew it up spot on the four minutes, right on a hop ball which could have been another opportunity for a score for us.
“They kicked a lot of frees, but I thought we were punished unfairly at times. We will have to look at that. It was a frustrating day.”
John Heslin was the game’s top scorer with 1-10 (1-3 from play), but he was conspicuously devoid of help in the scoring stakes.
“I thought John was outstanding today, particularly in the first half. We probably didn’t get the same amount of momentum going in the forward line in the second half. That’s another thing we have to work on,” the Coralstown/Kinnegad man reflected.
Louth’s victory has helped to throw open the race for promotion to Division 2. Cooney agreed.
“I think Division 3 was always going to be like that. Louth is always a very tough place to come to. They were very up after their victory in Limerick last week.
“We knew that we were going to get loads of tests in this campaign. We are all looking forward to seeing how we are going to respond to this now, starting with the rearranged game against Longford next Saturday,” he concluded.