“We have an awful lot of improving to do” - John Shaw
Gerry Buckley
With the last three in the race for the Westmeath Examiner Cup now decided, Raharney and Castlepollard, who contested the first game in last Sunday’s double-header in TEG Cusack Park, will have different ambitions in round five when they face Castletown-Geoghegan and Lough Lene Gaels respectively.
The initial post-match thoughts of winning Raharney manager John Shaw were as follows: “Castlepollard lost a man very early and obviously it fell into our hands a bit. They are a proud club and they put it up to us. They have been decimated with emigration and it’s tough going on them. We definitely slackened off and we had a serious amount of wides that kind of sucked the lives out of our lads by times. We had nearly 40 shots at the goals and only scored half of them. You’d have to be very disappointed with all the wides and balls being dropped short, but it was a tricky wind even for free-taking and it would be worse if you weren’t getting shots off. It was difficult to play with and against. We’re not lacking in effort, but our performance levels are not what where we want them to be at the moment. We have an awful lot of improving to do, but we’re still in the championship and we’re going to keep fighting and fighting. I know the lads will improve over the next few weeks.”
Expanding further on the game itself, the former Westmeath star stated: “The two goals gave us that chink of life in the first half, but we missed a couple of others as well. There’s no doubt about it, we haven’t been firing the way we’d like to be firing but there’s still a good few weeks to go. The games are going to be different later on, the ground will be heavier and what happened over the last six weeks mightn’t have much bearing on what happens in the next six. Robbie Greville looks like he will be out for a long time and he’s obviously a massive loss for us. We have a few lads who are a bit rusty and we have to get them up to speed as well.
“It’s Castletown-Geoghegan the next day and they have been putting up big scores. That will be a serious test for us but we’ll meet it head on,” he concluded.
Down the corridor, despite facing a massive threat of relegation to senior ‘B’ for 2026, Castlepollard manager Eamon O’Connor was keen to highlight his contentment with the effort shown by his players in the loss to Raharney.
When initially asked about Eoin English’s sensational red card after 80 seconds, O’Connor responded: “I didn’t see it to be honest, it all happened so quickly. We’ll have a look back at it, but it doesn’t matter as the man was sent off early and that’s part of the game. In fairness to the lads, they knuckled down and got stuck into it despite the strong breeze being against them in the first half. They worked hard, they had good old fight in them today, thanks be to God. Maybe we were due some criticism that we got in the first three games, but definitely today the boys put in a performance that we were happy with.”
He continued: “The two goals in the first half killed us a bit, but the lads died with their boots on. We were still battling away when we lost Allan (Devine) with a groin injury after hitting the free, whatever way he twisted. He was a huge loss. Someone with that man’s experience, you’d always think there was a little trick in him. The subs that came in tried hard, and I’m happy with today’s effort.”
It was put to him that emigration and injuries had damaged his squad, and he agreed, saying: “Any manager will tell you that you deal with what you have. Yes, we are down a lot of players from the last couple of years, but we still had 15 on the field today and I’m not taking from Raharney or any other team that we played all year. Castlepollard is a proud hurling club and they’ll keep going. They have great facilities out there and they have a great bunch of men involved.”
It’s win or bust now for the men in the famous blue and gold jerseys on the last day of the round robin series. “We’re playing Lough Lene Gaels and we have to win it. It’s a local derby. They have contested the last two county finals and they beat Raharney the last day. We have injuries after today and we have a huge hill to climb, but the Gaels will know that we’ll give it a rattle,” he concluded.