Westmeath ladies football team manager Michael Finneran speaks with his players after the game against Antrim earlier this month.

Finneran delighted with his players' wonderful attitude

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Westmeath manager, Michael Finneran said he was very satisfied with Westmeath’s overall performance following Sunday’s emphatic victory.

"We were good all the way through, I felt; quite solid in every line of the pitch; great athleticism throughout.

“We were patient, generally: we probably gave the ball away a few times in the first half, which meant we didn't get the scores to put us as far ahead as we should have been. But we did settle a bit and got that goal towards the end of the first half, which was a key score," he remarked.

Westmeath played into the breeze in the first half and were just three points ahead late on, before the first goal put daylight between the teams.

"The breeze has picked up, but I didn't feel it hampered us that much in the first half. Alright, it was probably made it a bit easier to move that ball and some of the long kick passes were easier.

“Once Longford had to push up on us, we found a lot more space and we'd be very happy with the way we took our scores," observed Finneran.

He praised the great attitude in the group following the defeat by Antrim a week earlier.

"There has been a super attitude among the players, from one to 30, all week, and throughout the game you could see the savage intensity from all of them.

“When we went to the bench we got players to come on and inject something fresh to it.

“We are in a good position and we had two girls making their debut - Lara McCartan at corner back and Caoimhe Kilmurray who came on in the second half. It was a big day for them."

The manager was delighted to see Aoife Connolly adding to her 45' conversion rate.

"It's a great weapon, a great skill that she has. There's very few players that you see with it around the country and I think it's worthy of two points and we're very lucky to have her on our side," he said.

Finneran's charges will now wait to see who they play in the knock-out stages. "We have three weeks now to get ourselves right for the biggest game of the year, a quarter-final."

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