Lynch ‘honoured’ to captain Westmeath and relieved with victory
David Lynch had the honour of being Westmeath captain for the first time last Sunday and he made the occasion more memorable by playing his part in an important victory over Offaly in Tullamore.
With Caulry’s Kevin Maguire unavailable due to an eye injury sustained in training, the dedicated Lynch stepped into the breach as team captain.
“I was honoured to be honest when asked during the week in Kevin’s absence to captain the team and, luckily enough, we got a win on the day so it was great,” said the St Malachy’s player.
As for his assessment of the game itself, Lynch was relieved with the win but felt the performance left plenty of room for improvement.
“It was dodgy territory there coming towards the end of the game. Between the third quarter and fourth quarter, we were under a little bit of pressure and the wind changed as well. Thank God Jimmy (Dolan) stepped up and got that score. Look, we know that wasn’t a polished performance by any means and we have a lot of work to do next week, but we came here for a win in our first league game and, thank God, we got that.”
Having lost to Cavan in their opening Allianz Football League game last year, Westmeath’s promotion bid never really picked up the momentum needed.
“We targeted this game to get a win and try and get on a roll in the league,” said Lynch. “As I said, it wasn’t a polished performance. We have a lot to work on but at least we have work-ons now, and we’ll regroup on Tuesday and hopefully we can put on a better performance next week.”
This year’s Division 3 campaign carries a double incentive for Westmeath - the target of promotion to Division 2 and the possibility of securing a place in the Sam Maguire Cup later in the year. Considering the way Westmeath competed against Armagh, Galway and Tyrone last year, the squad would love to test themselves at the top level again in 2024.
“We have two chances this year because we are in Division 3. We need to get out of Division 3 or get to a Leinster final to get back to that position. At the minute we have the league and we are targeting that as our first opportunity,” said Lynch.
There may be a balancing act needed between going all out to secure promotion and trying to peak in the Leinster championship, but Lynch is certainly not looking too far ahead.
“That’s down the line and I suppose we’ll worry about that if we are in that position. We are trying to get to that position, to get a couple of wins on the board and then we’ll worry about that,” said the teacher at Mercy Secondary School, Kilbeggan.
Over the last couple of seasons, most of Westmeath’s best displays have come in championship football, whether it was in the Tailteann Cup in 2022 or the Sam Maguire Cup group stages last year. But Lynch feels the squad has the battling qualities required to eke out victories amid tough weather conditions in winter and spring.
“We have some excellent footballers when we’re let play and it’s a dry day and there is a bit of space, but we have lads that can battle,” he insisted.
Westmeath will host Clare at TEG Cusack Park next Sunday (2pm) in their first home match of the league campaign.
“We’re looking forward to that now but no more than any other team we’ll do our homework on the Tuesday night leading up to it. We haven’t done anything on Clare yet, but we’ll see how they set up and that will dictate how we set up,” Lynch added.