Flanagan hails Ennis despite O'Byrne Cup defeat to Offaly

Despite shipping an eight-point defeat at the hands of his native county in the Bord na Móna O'Byrne Cup last Sunday, Westmeath manager Pat Flanagan was quite positive as he left O'Connor Park - in particular lauding the display of veteran defender-cum-attacker Michael Ennis, who endured an injury-ravaged 2011. "He was a monster there today, I thought. His leadership was unnatural. If players around him can take anything from that, hopefully Westmeath can be a far better team for it," said Flanagan of Ennis. Given the absence of the Garrycastle contingent, college commitments and some injuries, it was a new look side in maroon and white which took the field in Tullamore. Flanagan reflected: "We looked at the team before we went out today and we realised that there was only three of the team that played Louth in the first round of the league last year. It's difficult to get the panel together. Having said that, the lads who were out there worked extremely hard and to lose Darragh Daly and Denis Glennon right at the beginning was a blow to us." Daly (a back problem) and Glennon (an ankle injury) were deemed unfit to play after the warm-up, although the high profile Tyrrellspass forward came on in the 48th minute. "We were three points down and we took a chance on Denis. As for the younger guys it would have been good for them to get a win, but obviously Denis wasn't one hundred per cent fit," explained Flanagan. "Some of the lads were tiring as they were after putting in an extremely difficult week, with challenge games against Wicklow and Longford, other training sessions and even boxing practice ahead of the fundraiser!" Alluding to some of his younger players, the Clara native stated: "Trevor English, Kieran Martin and Callum McCormack are all young fellas coming through and they were superb. Kieran Sheridan had a difficult first ten minutes and another fella would have buckled, but instead of that he grew stronger and stronger. It's encouraging to see that fellows dug in and, even when we went seven or eight points down, we continued to work. Had we got any of those goal chances that we missed - we had four or five of them - it would have made a massive difference." Commenting on the early two-goal salvo by the winners, Flanagan said: "Offaly did all the damage in the first ten minutes. They got two goals and it took our lads time to settle. I thought the first goal shouldn't have gone in. Darren (Quinn) probably should have stopped it at his near post and we had chances to stop it before that, as Tommy Warburton maybe could have stopped it on the sideline, but Tommy was playing with a bit of a groin strain and he did very well eventually. When they got their lead up they were able to pile a number of their players back. It meant that every time Callum (McCormack) got the ball he was being double marked. We were chasing the game at that stage. The goals that they got and the chances that we missed was the difference in the game." The bainisteoir intends to give further chances to Sunday's team in the upcoming O'Byrne Shield, with Westmeath hosting DIT on Sunday in Kinnegad (2pm). "I have absolutely no doubt but that the new lads will grow in the next few weeks. Being honest, this time last year, everybody rejoiced on the night that we beat Dublin, but it was quickly forgotten about when we went up to Louth in the first match of the league and conceded two goals in the first ten minutes. We're building for this year's league game against Louth and, while it would have been nice to win today, it was irrelevant." A major plus from last weekend was the display of the U21s in a challenge game win against Meath. Flanagan concluded by lauding the panel who played in Kinnegad last Saturday. "We played exceptionally well against what was probably an understrength Meath team, but we were missing seven fellas who were going to be playing either with us or with college teams today. I think the future is bright and if we can be just given the time to build and get people behind us, especially Westmeath supporters, I think we can build for the future and do very well." Meanwhile, Athlone IT face a long trip to Baltinglass to play Wicklow in the O'Byrne Shield (Sunday, 2pm), having lost narrowly to Longford last weekend.