‘We showed up and battled,’ says Finneran after defeat

TG4 All-Ireland Ladies SFC Group C: Kerry 2-17, Westmeath 0-9

Westmeath made the long journey to a wet and windy Killarney but came out on the wrong side of a 14-point beating despite a display that had as many positives as negatives, writes Dan Kearney.

The positives could certainly be found in the manner that Westmeath kept plugging away until the finish, but unfortunately they didn’t have the quality to trouble a Kerry side that played with confidence throughout.

When you travel to a place like Killarney you need a good start but the direct opposite was the case for Westmeath as Kerry, playing with a strong breeze, got out of the blocks with serious intensity and found themselves 1-5 to no score ahead after 13 minutes. The Kerry goal came from their sharpshooter Louise Ní Mhuircheartaigh and the signs looked ominous for the visitors.

Instead, and to their credit, Westmeath buckled down and after wiping the sleep from their eyes, scored the next two points through Sarah Dillon and Karen Hegarty to get some kind of foothold in the game.

Westmeath manager Michael Finneran was very pleased with the resolve that his charges displayed.

“I said it to them afterwards how proud I was that they battled back after being 1-5 to no score down,” he said. “We showed up and battled all through. No heads went down, and they kept trying to do the right thing and worked their way back into the game.”

The only problem was that Kerry were always just a couple of steps ahead although they didn’t get their next score until the 25th minute through the mercurial Ní Mhuircheartaigh, but Westmeath fought back once more with the impressive Sarah Dillon pointing a free from an acute angle. Chloe Kelly then popped up from the back to slot over a left-legged effort and bring the score to 1-6 to 0-4 with 29 minutes played.

The biggest problem for Westmeath was that despite the excellent contributions of Chloe Kelly, Lucy Power, Sarah Dillon and Vicky Carr, Kerry always had an answer for what was thrown at them and finished the first half with scores from the very lively Katie Brosnan and Siofra O’Shea, after a superb overhead catch from a mis hit Niamh Carmody shot,. The home side took a 1-8 to 0-4 lead into the changing rooms.

If you were a fly on the wall of the Westmeath dressing room at half-time, then you would surely have come back to report that the chatter was all about having a good start to the second half. There would have been talk of putting Kerry on the back foot and putting them under pressure but unfortunately a goal from substitute Rachel Dwyer after just three minutes made the task look nigh impossible.

Westmeath could have raised the white flag after that but refused to do so which was something that manager Finneran was quite pleased about.

“We had a bad start to the second half. Again, the game could have just petered out. Now I know it probably did to an extent, but it could have really petered out without us troubling the scoreboard in the second half but no, we kept on working, so from a point of view of resilience and being able to work our way back in to games and being competitive in games we’d be very happy with our performance in that regard,” the Roscommon man said.

Whilst Westmeath certainly didn’t lack courage, there were some fundamental elements of the game that haunted them throughout. Kickouts continued to be a huge problem and the failure to gain primary possession was to prove costly. From one such failure to put hand on leather after a set play, Siofra O’Shea was unlucky when her punched effort went past Westmeath netminder Aoife O’Donnell but was miraculously saved off the line by Vicky Carr, who injured herself in the process.

Carr, whose GPS must have nearly exploded such was the mileage she covered, dusted herself down and scored a lovely point at the other end of the field. She repeated the feat four minutes later with her second score of the game to pull the scoreline back to 2-9 to 0-5.

Kerry added three more points on the bounce as they threatened to overrun Westmeath once more, but Sarah Dillon pointed to bring the visitors total to six points, although Anna Galvin and a Dwyer free pushed Kerry to an unassailable 2-14.

Once again Westmeath refused to raise the white flag but although Dillon (free) and Lucy Power added to the scoreboard, Niamh Broderick and Dwyer with two at the death finished off whatever resistance the visitors could muster.

With this loss, Westmeath finish bottom of Group C and will go into a relegation play off against the bottom team in Group A, Cavan, with the game due to be played on Sunday, July 3 in Longford (1pm).

“Lifting them for the relegation play off won’t be hard. They are a focused bunch, and their heads will be in a good place for it. They know that it’s kind of a one-off shot, and it’s knock out football in a way. It’s a big game,” he continued.

“The girls will be ready. Mentally won’t be a problem, it’ll be all about getting the bodies right between now and then. Keeping our senior status is massive. It’s massive for the development of a county. We’re just up this year and we don’t want to be going to a kind of yo-yo up and down.

“You want to be able to consolidate your senior status and push on. Meath are a bit of an anomaly in this regard as they came up (from Intermediate) and won the senior the following year but generally the big thing for an Intermediate team is to consolidate senior status in the first year and bring in new players and begin to push on the following year. So that’s where Westmeath football is at, at the moment.”

Scorers – Kerry: R Dwyer 1-5 (0-3f), L Ní Mhuircheartaigh 1-3 (0-2f), S O’Shea, N Carmody and K Brosnan 0-2 each, D O’Leary, N Broderick and A Galvin 0-1 each. Westmeath: S Dillon 0-4 (3f), V Carr and L Power 0-2 each, K Hegarty 0-1.

Kerry: Ciara Butler; Eilis Lynch, Kayleigh Cronin, Aoife Dillane; Ciara McCarthy, Emma Costello, Clodagh Ní Chonchúir; Mary O’Connell, Anna Galvin; Katie Brosnan, Caoimhe Evans, Niamh Carmody; Danielle O’Leary, Siofra O’Shea, Louise Ní Mhuircheartaigh. Subs: Rachel Dwyer for Ní Mhuircheartaigh (h-t), Julie O’Sullivan for K Cronin (38), Niamh Broderick for C Ní Chonchúir (43), Anna Clifford for N Carmody (43), Elizabeth Mohan for D O’Leary (49).

Westmeath: Aoife O’Donnell; Melek Fagan, Muireann Scally, Lucy Power; Niamh Nolan, Amy Alford, Chloe Kelly; Fiona Coyle, Tracey Dillon; Vicky Carr, Sarah Dillon, Kelly Boyce Jordan; Karen Hegarty, Kiara Giles, Aoife O’Malley. Subs used: Susanna Buckley for N Nolan (36), Kacey Geoghegan for A O'Malley (40), Shannon Lyons for K Hegarty (49), Zoe Guinane for L Power (59).

Ref: Shane Curley (Galway).