Carr sin-binning a big factor in Westmeath’s narrow defeat

By Damien Maher

Westmeath ladies football manager, Michael Finneran was disappointed that his side just failed to get over the line in last Sunday’s encounter against Cavan.

The Lake County seemed in a great position to win when they scored a late goal through Clara Thornton, but Cavan scored two unanswered points to take the spoils.

“It was frustrating; we were in a great position to get at least a draw and perhaps win the game,” remarked Roscommon native Finneran.

“We were unlucky. We worked very hard and were in the game for long spells. Indeed, there’s an argument we could have been well ahead at the break had we taken our chances in the first half, but we left a lot of scores behind us.

The game ebbed and flowed in the second half and we looked like we scored the goal at the right time, but just couldn’t finish it off. It’s frustrating, overall.”

Finneran felt Vicky Carr was unfortunate to receive a yellow card and endure a spell in the sin-bin in the second half, leaving Westmeath battling with 14 players.

“It looked like an innocuous challenge, to be fair. It was tough on Vicky; she barely touched her opponent, but look, the referee felt it was a high challenge and that’s the way it is. Certainly, it left us facing a huge task as we were against the breeze and down a key player,” he observed.

Despite that, Finneran’s troops rallied well and showed great character to get into a winning position and he was delighted with their resilience.

“In fairness, the girls couldn’t be faulted for their performance. They responded superbly in the face of adversity, but ultimately just failed to get over the line. It can be a cruel place sometimes and this Division 2 is really competitive,” he opined.

Finneran said the immediate challenge for his side is to improve on converting their scoring chances.

“We got a lot of scores early against Laois, for example, and that set the tone. We weren’t quite as clinical against Tipperary or Cavan; maybe that’s down to their level of work rate, too. They are both established senior sides and that could be a factor,” he said.

“But the encouraging thing for Westmeath is they are creating loads of chances and eventually it will come right.”

At the outset, it was felt that Armagh could be one of the leading contenders in this division, but Cavan and Tipeprary are showing up really well and Finneran realises his side have to respond when they face his own home county in two weeks.

“We have a crucial away game against Roscommon and that will be key for us now. We have a week off, but we will be very determined to get a victory. After that, we play Tyrone, so we have two big games coming at us and we are under no illusions - we need to win both of them to get back into the race,” he remarked.

Finneran is happy with how his second season is going, even though it’s early days.

“Our target was to be very competitive in this division and it’s only early February, so I’m very pleased with how we have performed so far. We will look at blooding some new players over the course of the league because that’s important for the remainder of the year,” he added.