Footballers must build on opening win as hurlers face mammoth task
Gerry Buckley Column
Shane Lowry hit a sensational albatross last Saturday in Torrey Pines South Course, but the following day in Glenisk O’Connor Park, his home county's northern neighbours maintained their status as an albatross round the neck of Offaly football this millennium, after having endured countless losses in the previous one.
The two counties are now tied at 12-all in National Football League head-to-heads, and any Westmeath inferiority complex facing the tricoloured jerseys has long since been put to bed. Speaking of which, my exceptionally late night at the splendid Mullingar Athletic AFC function on Saturday night/Sunday morning upset my circadian rhythm, but the win in Tullamore was a major energy boost!
Texts from a couple of fellow-scribes neatly summed up the victory, as follows: “Great to win down here. Important to win the first game; “Such a pleasing win today for all sorts of reasons, especially with key men missing.”
It was great to witness newcomers/fringe players taking their opportunities so well. That dreadful old spoilsport Father Time is catching up with some generational players in the Westmeath camp, and it would be wonderful if ready-made replacements were sliding along nicely on the conveyor belt. Of course, there is still life left in the legs of some absentees last Sunday and with games coming thick and fast, you can never have enough quality in a panel.
Naturally, there is no time for bragging rights for the players who now face another difficult assignment next Sunday when Clare come to TEG Cusack Park (throw-in 2pm). The Banner County is known for hurling (and traditional music) more than football, but the big ball exponents in saffron and blue have been consistently decent for many years now, due in no small way to the outstanding management of Colm Collins.
However, the Cratloe man handed back his bainisteoir bib last autumn after over a decade of over-achievement, and Mark Fitzgerald has replaced him. A few of the county’s best players are gone also.
All this undoubtedly makes the task facing Dessie Dolan’s troops a little easier on Sunday, but woe betide anybody who sees this as a straightforward assignment against a team with a lot of Division 2 experience and who, like their hosts, has a win under their belts from last Sunday (a one-point win in the ‘other’ Cusack Park against Sligo).
Remarkably, Clare was the only county with a 100 per cent competitive record against the Lake County in both hurling and football up to the end of 2019, but this changed a little over four years ago when Jack Cooney’s men edged the fourth league meeting between the counties in the Mullingar Cusack Park.
The previous three (1983, 1993 and 2016) had all gone Clare’s way, including a closely-fought contest in Athlone (when the Westmeath GAA headquarters in Mullingar was being renovated) in the second of these, at which point the visitors were sensational Munster champions under John Maughan’s tutelage. I recall current Westmeath kitman Paddy Walsh scoring a brace of fine goals that day in Páirc Chiaráin. The Downs man will be unable to find the net next Sunday, but will share the hopes of his fellow-Westmeath men that a perfect start to the campaign will be maintained.
There was a good-sized Westmeath following in Tullamore. More of the same would be most welcome time on Sunday.
Exactly 24 hours earlier in Salthill, a gigantic task awaits Joe Fortune’s hurlers. Even if the men in maroon and white (well, probably maroon and green on the day) had everybody to pick from, an away fixture against the Henry Shefflin-managed Tribesmen would be daunting, but a plethora of absentees – for a variety of avoidable and unavoidable reasons – makes the opening game of the National League pretty much an impossible assignment for the visitors.
One well-known Westmeath ‘hurling man’ (I never liked that term – surely we want both codes to be successful) depressed yours truly on the streets of Mullingar last Saturday by listing 12, yes a dozen, absent players who would be certainties/near-certainties/quite likely to be picked if they were available. A county board official told me in Tullamore that he expects six, yes half a dozen, debutants in Pearse Stadium.
Indeed, the satisfaction driving home from Glenisk O’Connor Park was interrupted by ‘analysts’ on RTÉ radio’s Sunday Sport talking openly of how the leading counties often plan training camps to coincide with playing Westmeath. The term, ‘no disrespect to Westmeath’, was bandied about quite a bit – but it was disrespectful!
Accordingly, it would be magical to suggest that Fortune’s charges could pull off a sensation similar to what happened in Loughrea in 1986. However, such a prediction would have men in white coats queueing up for me. And I don’t mean umpires!
The teams have previously met on 15 occasions, with Westmeath’s only two victories coming as above in 1986 and also 46 years earlier in Castlepollard. Indeed, the words of one of the latter town’s finest citizens, the late, great Ned Flynn, come to mind when getting carried away at the thoughts of an unexpected Lake County win: “Keep taking the tablets, Gerry!”
All concerned, including the few travelling die-hards, know that Galway will win this game, and Westmeath's target is surely respectability. Some of the recent beatings from the ‘other’ county to wear maroon and white have been deeply unpleasant. Shefflin is surely under enormous pressure this year to land the Liam MacCarthy Cup, and any youngster getting a chance from the ten-time Celtic Cross winner at this time of the year is likely to show no mercy.
We can only hope that Fortune finds a few gems in the weeks and months ahead with a very competitive Joe McDonagh Cup likely to be the primary focus for 2024.