O’Brien satisfied with ‘good workout’ against Dublin

By Gerry Buckley

While – as was widely expected – Kevin O’Brien’s debut as Westmeath senior hurling manager ended in defeat in Parnell Park on Sunday afternoon, the Clonkill clubman expressed his satisfaction with how things are going overall with his new-look panel when he spoke to the media after losing the Dioralyte Walsh Cup semi-final to Dublin.

At the outset he opined: “It was a good workout. At the end of the day, we were playing All-Ireland semi-finalists, and 22 or 23 lads played. Obviously, we have loads to do, but it was good preparation for three weeks’ time in the first round of the league. We’ll take the positives from it – a lot of players got game time and we’re trying to build a panel. We lost the first half by ten points, the second by three or four. There was an improvement in that second half. We have a lot of things to fix, but you’d have to be happy as lads got a game under their belts.”

He continued: “Since I started, they are at training half an hour before it starts and they hang on after it. It’s a great group and all the management team working with them find it very enjoyable. They are a really top-class group of players. They all want to be there, which is a huge thing. A lot of lads made their debuts and that’s what it’s all about, building for the future.”

When he was asked how he viewed the Walsh Cup overall as a competition, he responded: “They are well organised challenge matches, that’s what they are. You have good pitches and referees. We treat it like that. It’s game time for lads. We’re thinking of this day three weeks (in Tralee) and we’ve a couple of games lined up before that. Altogether, we’ll have played six matches before the league starts and then we’ll finalise our team before the Kerry game.”

When he was asked about injuries in the Lake County camp, O’Brien concluded thus: “We have lads carrying a few knocks. Darragh Egerton is close enough to getting back, thank God. David O’Reilly had his operation shortly after Christmas, so we’d hope to have him back for the championship (Joe McDonagh Cup) or sometime into it. It’s something that needed to be done. There was no point in strapping him up every day and hoping for the best. Player welfare has to be looked after.”