‘There will be a good buzz in the camp after this’ – Mark McHugh

By Gerry Buckley

“If this keeps going, it will be alright!” So said Westmeath senior football manager Mark McHugh with his tongue firmly in his cheek, in the aftermath of his third successive win which garnered the O’Byrne Cup for the Lake County in sensational fashion in Newbridge last Friday night.

He continued: “It must have been a great game on TV for boys watching at home on a Friday night. We had a lot of opposite defeats last year, so it’s nice to be on the other side.

"It was a good second half, but I wouldn’t have been happy with the first half at all. We were 0-8 to 0-4 down at half-time and could, and should, have been a lot more. I know we missed two goals in the first half by Mattie (Whittaker) and Jonny (Lynam), but Kildare didn’t have their shooting boots on. We got two ‘45’s out of our goal chances and just one point.

"I don’t mind lads going for goals, but there were other silly shots that we went for that we didn’t need to. Defensively we didn’t work as hard in the first half as we did last week, and that told. So, we rode our luck a little bit there.”

The Donegal man and his management team clearly spoke a few home truths during the interval. In this regard, he stated: “We asked a lot of questions of people here at half-time, and we asked questions of our subs who came off the bench. Yes, it’s the O’Byrne Cup, but it’s still a final. Even if you’re playing tiddlywinks or cards, you want to win. Eight months ago, we were here after getting beaten in the championship and the lads were hurting. Tonight was probably a lot higher standard than the two oppositions we’ve already played.

"The performance in the first half is not going to get us anywhere. The performance in the second half might. We got to grips with both kick-outs and put on a bit of a press. We started to win more breaking ball. There’s a want and a skill in winning breaking ball. We had some super performances in the second half by some of our bigger players, and I thought that the boys who came on finished off the job. They brought a lot of energy to the team.”

Westmeath came back from eight points down to win. Naturally, this pleased the former All Star who remarked: “They got a dubious enough goal. It looked like it might have been a free out to us. I don’t know how it ended up in the net. It was a sucker punch. But to come back from that was the most pleasing thing.”

Unquestionably, the standout individual performances came from the experienced duo of Ronan Wallace and Luke Loughlin. The winning bainisteoir concurred, stating: “Ronan is a fabulous footballer. We would make any team in Ireland and is a great leader for us. The younger lads see how hard he has to work and he has real talent. It was a superbly-worked goal from him and he sure can kick two-pointers! At the end of the match, there was no better man in Ireland than Luke to get on the ball at that stage.”

LiLike all Westmeath Gaels, the manager knows that the National League is far more important than the O’Byrne Cup and, in this regard, he described this Sunday's game against Sligo as “our big test”.

McHugh said: “We have to get ready for that. We have a few boys to come back after injury and I don’t think we picked up any more tonight. There will be a good buzz ahead of the league, and it’s nice to get a bit of silverware. We are going to have to be ready for them (Sligo) and the fight they will bring to Cusack Park next week.

“We can’t be flat like we were in the first half tonight. We want to get promoted for sure, but we’ll take every game as it comes. If you win your first game you can still be relegated, and if you lose your first one you can still be promoted. That’s the way the league works,” he added.