Westmeath boss urges players to grab chance of All-Ireland success
Westmeath U20 football manager Kenny McKinley insists his side will be going all out to win the All-Ireland ‘B’ final against Monaghan in Cavan tonight (Wednesday), throw-in 7.30pm.
An All-Ireland ‘B’ championship may not get people’s pulses racing, but McKinley knows the value of winning silverware at underage level.
At the start of the year, Westmeath’s target was to make progress in the Leinster championship but when that didn’t work out, they bounced back to win the Andrew Corden Cup (the Leinster ‘B’ title) in impressive fashion. Now All-Ireland success at ‘B’ level is just one victory away.
“We wanted to be on the other side of the fence and playing with the big boys. It just didn’t work out for us that way. But one of the key things that we’re trying to do as a management team is to bring a standard no matter what match it is. You have to be very honoured to pull on that Westmeath jersey whether it’s challenge match or a championship match,” said McKinley, an All-Ireland minor medal winner in 1995.
“Winning breeds winning and all that. That’s what we’re trying to instil. We’ll be going absolutely all out to try and win this game. Not winning it will a failure in our eyes, and I think the lads know that in the dressing room.”
Reflecting on last week’s semi-final win over Leitrim (see report here), McKinley feels his side must improve on certain aspects if they are to overcome Monaghan at Kingspan Breffni Park.
“I think the biggest turning point in the whole game was just after half-time when Leitrim came down and cracked the ball off the crossbar. And I think if they got that goal, we’d be in big trouble because they’re well able to kick two-pointers,” he remarked.
McKinley felt Leitrim were “efficient” with point scoring chances, but the fact that his side notched three goals - whereas the Connacht side was unable to find the net - obviously proved key to the outcome.
McKinley was concerned with his side’s tendency to take their foot off the pedal against Leitrim. “In certain patches, I thought were excellent. I thought Jack Duncan was absolutely phenomenal out there, didn’t put a foot wrong again.
“But I think what we did there today at times if we do that in the final against Monaghan, we’ll be punished because they will be clinical and efficient
“The good thing is that we’re backboned by lads that played in last year’s final (where they lost out to Down) and sometimes you just have to lose a final to learn how to win a final. In the last ten minutes of the game, Tadhg Baker just sat back into the pocket once or twice. He wasn’t told to do that; he just knew himself to do it.
“It’s testament to the work that Damien Gavin did before us and he handed over a very good squad. We just have to kind of take learnings from last year’s final and get our leaders to step up.
“Westmeath have always produced good players but have we taken home silverware all the time? No, we haven’t. We’re trying as a county to get structures in place and it’s going to be long journey.
“You don’t get too many chances in life to win silverware in your county jersey. So when these chances come along, you have to go after them with both hands.”
Although Adam Keane went into last week’s game carrying an ankle injury, he came through unscathed, with the Rosemount defender even managing to score a goal.
And while Westmeath lost players such as Daire O’Connor, Mikey Weir and Daniel McCann earlier in the campaign, McKinley expects to have virtually all of last week’s match-day squad available for the final.
And with the final looming, the Westmeath manager quipped that players will be “kind of hiding injuries” as they seek a place in the starting team or at least a slot among the subs.