“There’s still a long way to go” – Alan Mangan

Reaction as Castletown Geoghegan inflict heavy defeat on Clonkill

By Gerry Buckley

Despite his charges having laid down a marker as firm favourites to retain the Westmeath Examiner Cup with a power-packed display against Clonkill last Sunday evening in TEG Cusack Park, Castletown-Geoghegan manager Alan Mangan remained grounded about his club’s prospects in the weeks and months ahead.

The 2004 Leinster-winning Westmeath football forward initially opined: “We got off to a good start. It was a strong wind to be fair and we went 9-0 up. It’s tough to play against that wind, and we sort of struggled ourselves against it in the last 15 minutes. The lads played very well, but that’s what you love to see after coaching and training them. You love to see some things that you work on in training working out. It doesn’t always come to fruition, but we have a fantastic bunch of lads who are always at training. They all want to learn, they all want to get better, and this is driven by our better players. You need your best players and your leaders to drive things, and we’re lucky in that regard. If we’re on it, we’re really good.”

When asked about his team’s whopping return of 6-26, Mangan stated: “You’d want to nearly forget about the last 20 minutes because they had two lads sent off in a short space of time. It was very hard for Clonkill to get any foothold in the game at that stage. We have a good bunch of forwards, but we need them on song all the time. There’s big pressure on these lads to perform every time they go out. The microscope is on them, and more than ever now with Kevin O’Brien having got the Westmeath senior hurling job. The lads will want to impress him and to impress us, as they want to hold on to their places because we have a strong panel. We brought on subs today, any of whom could start the next day. There’s competition for places, which is very good. Everything worked for us today.

You could go out the next day and nothing would work for you, and you’re in a dogfight straight away.”

He concluded by giving credit to the vanquished team and being cautious about the tasks ahead: “We all know how good a club Clonkill is, and we were striving for years to get to where they were. We lost three county finals in-a-row to them. They’ll be back. This is a bit of a knock for them, but it won’t be for too long. But we can be poor also when we’re not on it. There’s a long way to go this year. We haven’t retained the county title since 1958 and that’s a long, long time.”

Down the corridor, Clonkill bainisteoir Mickey Dan Murtagh was offering no excuses for his side’s annihilation by their age-old rivals. “We got a lesson in hurling, to tell the truth,” he stated at the outset, before adding, “Castletown-Geoghegan are a fair outfit and they’ll take stopping. They are in serious condition and they are moving the ball well. They just had us at sixes and sevens, and they ran us all over the place. We just couldn’t handle them at all.”

Also well-known as a referee, Murtagh continued: “Anthony (Price) pulled off four or five good saves as well, so it could have been a lot worse than what it was. They got into the driving seat, and kept plucking away with points and opened us up completely. Luke (Loughlin) tried to keep the show going, but let’s call a spade a spade, Castletown have probably 20 Lukes. It’s all about strength and conditioning now, and all those Castletown lads are filling their jerseys.

“I don’t want to get into stuff about lads being sent off – there are enough people doing that – but when we lost two players the game was as good as over already. It is what it is – the game was gone at that stage, so it didn’t matter. It’s demoralising and fingers will be pointed, but there was nothing we could do. They were just far better, and that’s it. Lads are feeling low in the dressing room after a beating like that, but they just have to get the heads up and get back training on Tuesday night.”

Looking ahead, Murtagh concluded: “We’re as good as gone out of the championship, I’d say. We have Lough Lene Gaels next, then Fr Dalton’s. Even if we did win both games, the way things are lining up it mightn’t be enough unless there is a spanner in the works somewhere. We have young lads coming through, but to get them bedded in takes work. We will be back, but we mightn’t be back for three or four years.”