Flanagan's boys remember at last how to win

GAELIC GAMES NEWS:MOST OF the victories in the football championship over the weekend were not supposed to happen. The giants of Cork and Kerry played out their annual early summer draw but in the other three provinces the formbook, from the league and 2009, was torn asunder. Kildare, Mayo and Armagh are proof of this as they slink off to a qualifier pool already infested with sharks.

They will be joined by Mick O’Dwyer, on his last lap in management, we are told, as Wicklow were beaten by a Westmeath team that suddenly remembered how to win a game of football.

Last Sunday two consecutive winless league campaigns were shelved as they now begin preparations for a provincial semi-final against Louth on June 26th.

In April the Westmeath players’ threat of downing tools saw Brendan Hackett dismissed just a few months into his managerial tenure. Pat Flanagan was parachuted in on an interim basis.

“I said from the start there was quality in the camp – I have always known that,” said Flanagan, who was part of the Tomás Ó Flatharta set-up.

“When I went in (five weeks ago) I just worked on getting fellas mentally prepared more so than physically because they weren’t in bad shape. Having lost the number of games they had lost, the big thing was to get them into a frame of mind where they had self-belief and then we put the work-rate with it.”

Flanagan brought Paul Conway and David Mitchell with him as selectors. Both were members of the 2004 Leinster title-winning panel under Páidí Ó Sé – the last time Westmeath upset football’s status quo in the province.

Flanagan laid out one primary goal: “Beat Wicklow. Nothing else. We just got it into their minds that championship is completely different. The 6th of June was all that mattered. Nothing before or after that counted. We just worked towards that day. We put all our efforts into the one game.

“When you get people believing they can do it they work that bit harder towards it. From this morning we can look forward.”

Denis Glennon walked away a few months back but returned under the new management and kicked the winning score on Sunday as extra-time loomed.

Dessie Dolan also made a cameo appearance off the bench.

“Dessie has had commitments. He is getting married in the near future. We felt it better to bring him in for a boost in experience late on. The reaction of the crowd when we did this told its own story. The roof nearly lifted off the stand with the roar. It did give us a major boost at that time.”

Westmeath beating Wicklow is not exactly a revelation. This was, however, supposed to be the year Kieran McGeeney’s Kildare broke the stranglehold Dublin held over Leinster. But Kildare were beaten convincingly by Louth on Saturday night.

Louth manager Peter Fitzpatrick produced an honest post- match interview when he stated their opponents failed to show his team enough respect as they were already thinking about a Leinster final on July 11th. It was not meant as an insult to McGeeney’s team, more a defence of his own.

“I’ll tell you the reason why I said that, it was down to the amount of people criticising the Longford match,” Fitzpatrick elaborated yesterday (Louth beat Longford by four points last month).

“Longford are not a bad team and it was a very important game for both of us. Both set-ups put in a big effort. It was always going to be a very tight match. There was an awful lot of pressure. It wasn’t pretty football but it was a tough match.”

Shane Lennon kicked four points in the 1-22 to 1-16 victory over Kildare and was due to undergo an operation today on damaged hand tendons but that has been postponed indefinitely as Louth go chasing their first Leinster title since 1957.

“Look, Dublin have set the standard in the Leinster championship and it is up to the rest of us to catch them,” continued Fitzpatrick. “In fairness, last year, Kildare were very unlucky. This year I think it is going to be fantastic as you’ve got either Westmeath or Louth in a Leinster final. Let’s hope whoever gets there can do themselves justice.”

The weekend results have placed greater importance on the Munster semi-final replay between Kerry and Cork this Sunday in Páirc Uí Chaoimh (throw-in 3.30pm). Armagh and Mayo were also dumped from their local championships by Monaghan and Sligo, while Donegal, Antrim and Derry are already waiting on the back roads

Meanwhile, the Central Competitions Control Committee will allow referee Martin Sludden examine video evidence of Armagh’s Brian Mallon’s red card offence, for the challenge on Monaghan’s Rory Woods after 25 minutes last Sunday, to establish whether it was a shoulder or an intentional elbow. Sludden’s subsequent report will determine the length of ban for Mallon.