Major banana skin awaits footballers on Barrowside

By Gerry Buckley

A friend of mine, who is all too aware of my initial apathy to the Tailteann Cup, suggested to me last week that the competition won’t really generate any great interest until the semi-final stage.

I concurred, albeit to date the coverage on RTÉ’s flagship Sunday Game programme has exceeded my expectations. No doubt, the GAA and our national broadcaster agreed in advance to give what is the third attempt at a secondary football competition every chance of succeeding by showing a reasonable amount of match highlights followed by discussion on the games.

It is always difficult to judge crowd sizes from press boxes which, naturally enough, hover over the spectators at games. My initial reaction in Portlaoise last Sunday was that the attendance was bigger than I had anticipated, as the noise levels were decent but, looking at the television that night, the stand looked very sparsely populated.

The general pre-competition consensus was that a Cavan vs Westmeath final looked likely. That, of course, is still a runner, but last Monday morning’s draw was just for the quarter-finals, so there is a lot of work to be done to before any county can contemplate lifting the new trophy (which looks like an impressive piece of silverware) in the Hogan Stand come July 9.

The aforementioned draw pitted Jack Cooney’s men against Carlow, shock winners against Tipperary. And lest we forget it, the Premier County were worthy Munster champions as recently as 2020. Who will ever forget the drama of their provincial victory in a changed white and green strip, or the excellent tributes to the fallen heroes of a century earlier in their subsequent All-Ireland semi-final defeat at the hands of Dublin?

Of course, we would all have liked Kevin Maguire to be leading Westmeath out in GAA headquarters in the Leinster final, but the outcome would almost certainly have been deeply unpleasant with the sky blue and navy juggernaut having unquestionably been re-fuelled since relegation in the league with high octane gas. It was game, set and match after 26 minutes (at the most) against Kildare, with Con O’Callaghan, he of very strong Westmeath pedigree, proving that he is more than entitled to be thrown into conversations alongside David Clifford when the country’s top forward debate is being held.

As it transpired, Maguire was in the headlines for the wrong reasons approximately 21 hours later, the Caulry man picking up a straight red card after a clash with Eoin Lowry in Portlaoise. His absence greatly reduced the physicality of the Lake County’s defence against an imposing O’Moore County full forward line.

For over a decade, Maguire has been a defensive lynchpin for maroon and white-clad sides. Like a handful of others in the same age bracket, this may be his last opportunity to pick up a worthwhile national medal. The contest against Laois was full-blooded, and this seems to have been the case in all the Tailteann Cup fixtures to date.

The north/south split remains a virtually unanimous bone of contention for all Gaels, but there will be an open draw for the semi-finals And why not, with Croke Park as the venue for both.

For now, it’s a case of ‘follow me down to Carlow’ on Sunday, specifically Netwatch Cullen Park for a real banana skin of a tie against Niall Carew’s troops. The Westmeath players will expect to win this game, and the Westmeath fans will expect them to win. And that will suit the men in red, green and yellow jerseys (their colour scheme was further enhanced with red togs against Tipp) right down to the ground. Anything less than total respect for the home team would be fatal.

Charlie Drumm of The Downs has been selected to replace the suspended Maguire on the Westmeath team named for the clash with Carlow.

Westmeath team (Tailteann Cup v Carlow): Jason Daly; Jack Smith, Charlie Drumm, David Giles; Jamie Gonoud, Ronan Wallace, Nigel Harte; Jonathan Lynam, Ray Connellan; Sam McCartan, Ronan O'Toole, David Lynch; Luke Loughlin, John Heslin, Alex Gardiner.

Flashback: Carlow v Westmeath - 1994

The Tailteann Cup is the third All-Ireland ‘B’ championship in various guises. The first, with that specific name to boot, was a genuine success for a few years and Westmeath’s biggest game in it was at a very well-attended final in Tullamore on November 20, 1994. Managed by Mattie Kerrigan and captained by a certain Jack Cooney, the maroon and white-clad side lost to worthy champions in, yes, Carlow by 2-10 to 1-11.

For the record, Westmeath’s team and scorers that day in O’Connor Park were as follows: David Mitchell; Michael Broder, John O’Brien, Dermot Brady; Oliver Keating (0-1), Damien Burke, Anthony Coyne; Jack Cooney (0-1), Noel Lynch; Dermot Wilson, Rory O’Connell (1-0), John Fleming; Larry Giles (0-1), John Murray (0-1), Ger Heavin (0-7). Subs used: Tom Darcy for Broder, Alan McDonnell for Fleming, Johnny Healy for O’Connell.