McHugh in ‘a state of shock’ as Wexford snatch victory

Westmeath football manager Mark McHugh admitted he was in “a state of shock” after Wexford’s last-gasp goal ended his side’s promotion ambitions at Chadwicks Wexford Park last Sunday.

“I can’t really sum it up. I’m still in a state of shock. We did everything right to win that game today and we put ourselves in a serious position with ten minutes to play,” said McHugh ruefully, after Wexford secured promotion at Westmeath’s expense.

“I thought even in the last attack that we had, we were in control of it. We took the wrong option by giving the ball back to them. We need to look at that and, unfortunately, that’s going to hurt.

“I’m in a bit of shock here, and I’m sure the lads are in a bit of shock too. It needs to sting; it needs to hurt. To learn from it, I suppose, is the best thing, but that will not be easy. We just have to see where we went wrong.

“I thought we played well, we played well for 69 minutes of the game, if that’s possible. We just didn’t see the job out and that’s on us, and we have to dust ourselves down pretty quickly now. This competition is over, it changes our plans a wee bit, obviously, but that’s football; sometimes you don’t get what you deserve,” he continued.

Although Westmeath led by eight points in the last quarter, McHugh admitted they were unable to fully kill off Wexford’s challenge.

“I thought we were always tipping away at the scoreboard. I suppose it’s disappointing that after we got the goal, to then concede a goal in the next attack. There are things we just have to look at,” he said.

“I thought we competed well. It was probably around a 50-50 game in the middle of the field between both teams. Matty Whitaker was absolutely outstanding - every time he got the ball, he hurt them, he opened them up and they couldn’t handle him. It’s a tough one to take now - that last second goal.”

The second two-pointer scored by Wexford goalkeeper Darragh Brooks was a source of controversy with Westmeath penalised for not handing the ball back, with this bizarre rule - which has been heavily criticised by numerous managers and players - causing issues yet again.

“We felt Brandon (Kelly) tried to give the ball back, and, you know, he just ran into the boy,” said McHugh. “We looked at this at the start of the league and they’re massive calls and I always feel in those situations, the ref has to be so sure to give them. Ultimately that got them back into a position to win the game. But I’m not going to start crying about calls or anything like that, because we had our destiny in our own hands. We had the ball with 50 seconds to go, and we gave it back to them.”

In general, McHugh was pleased with how his team dealt with Wexford’s goal threat, pointing to blocks from players such as Danny Scahill and Shane Allen. Understandably, however, he felt both goals Wexford were preventable from a Westmeath point of view.

“It was disappointing to let in a goal after our goal. After getting a goal, you’re on a high and it gave them a momentum swing back. The last one we should have dealt with it. We made a save even at that stage, just the rebound was there and we had no luck with that.”

McHugh was again pleased with how Westmeath’s subs contributed, including the returning Tadhg Baker (who replaced Boidu Sayeh after the latter picked up a hamstring injury) and Robbie Forde (scorer of a point shortly after coming on).

“We’ve been saying great things about our bench all year and the boys came on and did a job today as well. Ray (Connellan) came in and was very good around the middle. We always have options on the bench, we know that. We just didn’t do enough to win the game,” he remarked.

Asked if it would be hard to lift the players for next month’s Leinster championship clash with Longford, McHugh responded: “I hope not. They’re a great bunch of lads, and they’ve put so much work into this. We’ve split the year into two competitions anyway. We obviously wanted a better result out of this competition, but ultimately it just hasn’t gone our way. And we said coming down, if we’re not good enough to beat Wexford today, we’re not good enough to be up in Division 2.”

McHugh said the Longford game on Sunday, April 12 was “the furthest thing from my mind” in the aftermath of the Wexford defeat, before adding that he will quickly switch his focus to the upcoming assignment.

“I believe they won today (against Wicklow), so they are promoted. So fair play to Longford, that’s a great result for them. We have to dust ourselves down and we’ll go up there and prepare as well as we prepared for today.

“Listen, we have a bit of work to do now for the next two or three weeks, and we need to raise the spirits after today because if I’m hurting, they’re hurting. So we’ll stick together and we’ll start focusing on it later in the week, and that’s what you have to do, you have to get on with things. There’s two more championships - the Leinster championship gives us that opportunity to get into the All-Ireland series by getting to the final. That’s what we have to aim towards now, and there’s a lot of football to be played.

“We felt we did everything right today. We put ourselves in a position (to win the game), we should have won the game and we didn’t. So that’s ultimately the disappointing part,” he added.