Tricky test in Aughrim for Westmeath footballers
It has been very pleasing to see Westmeath fans get behind the county’s flagship football team in recent weeks in reasonably large numbers, and the team’s 100 per cent record in the Allianz Football League to date should ensure another decent away support in Echelon Park, Aughrim next Sunday (throw-in 1pm).
Unfortunately, the hurlers are still struggling somewhat to get Lake County fans behind them and they were hugely outnumbered by their Limerick counterparts in TEG Cusack Park on Sunday last. The latter, of course, have been utterly spoilt over the past six years with five Liam MacCarthy Cups garnered in this remarkable spell for John Kiely’s troops.
While they were certainly lethargic by their exalted standards against Joe Fortune’s charges, it will still take one hell of a team to stop their full-strength side from becoming the first ever to achieve a small ball five in-a-row in July – it’s still hard for a man of my vintage not to write ‘on the first Sunday in September’!
Naturally, it wasn’t always like this for the green and white-clad men, and this scribe has a sentimental attachment to the breakthrough success of a side captained by Eamonn Grimes (a thorough gentleman whom I had the pleasure of interviewing 18 years ago for my ‘Fifty-Five Years of the Croke Cup’ book).
Yours truly, complete with a mop of long hair, started work as a trainee accountant in Oliver Freaney and Co in Castle Street, Mullingar on the following morning i.e. September 3, 1973, and felt all ‘grown up’ at a mid-morning coffee break discussing the events from a rain-swept Croke Park a day earlier, a week shy of my 17th birthday, when the Treaty men had deservedly bridged a 33-year gap by beating a slightly understrength Kilkenny outfit.
This historic win has been superbly captured in a splendid book compiled by James Lundon, entitled ‘1973 – Keeping the Dream Alive’. Dozens of email exchanges later, the author kindly popped into the TEG Cusack Park press box last Sunday prior to the game to generously present me with a signed copy. Frankly, I can’t wait to get stuck into it. Of course, little did James or any of us envisage a 45-year delay until Declan Hannon lifted hurling’s most prized silverware on Jones’ Road in 2018, thereby commencing the current incredible run of success. And there’s much more to it all than JP McManus’ money!
Incidentally, the belated meeting with the affable James followed what was an emotional reunion with scoreboard operator par excellence Mick Moody, illness having kept the Mullingar native away from the control room he has overseen with tremendous efficiency for many years. And if you think that keeping the scores electronically in matches is easy, try it yourself sometime – as ‘Pee’ Flynn said to startled Late Late Show viewers many moons ago in relation to running three houses!
Of course, Limerick’s own ‘late late show’ prevented a gigantic upset last Sunday in the game which followed. Hopefully Joe Fortune, whose genuine passion for promulgating hurling was evident on RTÉ’s ‘League Sunday’ a few hours after his troops’ great showing in Mullingar, will hear the sound of many Westmeath voices in the ‘home of hurling’ on Saturday week when his young side faces Tipperary.
However, for now it is the big ball exponents in maroon and white who will take centre stage again with a tricky assignment in Wicklow. Dessie Dolan’s men undoubtedly rode their luck in the one-point win against Clare last Sunday week.
Indeed, Clare’s ‘goal that wasn’t’ prompted an article on the ‘square ball’ rule in a major Sunday newspaper last weekend. The contribution of Banner County manager Mark Fitzgerald reiterated his unhappiness with the umpires’ call which was a big setback to his side’s chances of an immediate return to Division 2, a group in which they had laudably stayed up – often comfortably – for almost a decade up to 2023.
‘Dem is the breaks’ is the grammatically incorrect mantra that is thrown around about sporting highs and lows. God knows, Dolan was due a break after last year’s frustrating Sam Maguire Cup exploits. It must also be said, of course, that when I had the aforementioned mop of hair and attended countless Westmeath games as a youngster, the spirit shown in the face of adversity by the home team against Clare wasn’t always evident, and to come back and win having been five points down with 11 minutes of normal time remaining took a lot of bottle.
It augurs well for 2024, with several tough games guaranteed and the hope that participation can again be garnered with the ‘big boys’ in the race for the blue riband of Gaelic football.
That quest continues in Aughrim next Sunday. It won’t be easy against Oisín McConville’s men, freshly promoted from Division 4. Clashes with the Garden County men have generally gone Westmeath’s way (11 wins and a draw from 16 league encounters to date), including a 100 per cent record this millennium (see recent results below).
A couple of famous clashes immediately spring to my mind – a last-gasp goal from a free in Athlone in 1994 by John Murray (whose nephew Gavin played for Clare last Sunday week) and the ‘Tunnelgate’ game five years later in Mullingar.
It’s a case of fingers crossed for another Lake County victory next Sunday to build on the very promising start made this year, despite the absence of a couple of crucial veterans.
Recent meetings: Westmeath vs Wicklow
26/11/2000, Cusack Park, Westmeath 2-16 Wicklow 0-9
2/2/2003, Aughrim, Westmeath 2-16 Wicklow 0-5
5/3/2006, Cusack Park, Westmeath 0-15 Wicklow 1-9
19/3/2017, TEG Cusack Park, Westmeath 0-19 Wicklow 0-14
30/1/2022, TEG Cusack Park, Westmeath 1-16 Wicklow 2-8.