O'Brien preparing Wicklow for a 'wounded animal'

FOOTBALL NEWS:WICKLOW ARE preparing for a "wounded animal" in the form of Westmeath when they journey back to Tullamore for Sunday's Leinster quarter-final.

It’s a rematch of the same order and at the same venue as last year – where Westmeath won after extra-time – only this time Wicklow are the team fancied to progress, for several reasons.

Although Wicklow lost out this time last year, they blazed a trail through the qualifiers before eventually falling to Kildare; Westmeath, in contrast, were hammered by Dublin in the Leinster semi-final, unceremoniously dumped out of the qualifiers, and have yet to win a match this year, their dismal league run resulting in the exit of first-season manager Brendan Hackett.

Now under the temporary guidance of former selector Pat Flanagan, Westmeath have since tempted back star forwards Dessie Dolan and Denis Glennon, and that’s just one of the reasons why former Wicklow standout and current selector Kevin O’Brien expects a fearsome challenge.

“We’ve actually watched Westmeath in a couple of challenge matches recently and it’s a very, very tall order,” says O’Brien. “They’re like a wounded animal. They seem to be playing like a team that has a point to prove.

“That’s probably the most dangerous team you can meet, so we’ll be taking nothing for granted. They’ll have all their players back and it’s going to be tough.”

Westmeath won out last year 0-16 to 1-10, but truth is Wicklow had countless chances to take it: “I don’t think both teams played to their potential and that was disappointing,” adds O’Brien. “When you look back, we lost three defenders inside two minutes, we brought in three subs and everyone was saying that we hadn’t used subs all over the year and there was three gone in. The three guys fitted in and they’ve been playing well since.

“So we were disappointed, yeah. We could have won it in the last kick of the game in ordinary time, but look at what happened afterwards. Westmeath were beaten badly by Dublin in the following weeks and we went on and had a run and it ended up that Tony Hannon took a 45 to beat Down so you never know. Football is a strange game.”

Flanagan has by all accounts restored some steadiness in Westmeath. A selector under former boss Tomás Ó Flatharta, and who is combining his current responsibilities with the role as manager of Offaly club Clara, Flanagan at least has the services of Dolan and Glennon – both of whom withdrew from the panel while Hackett was in charge.

Wicklow manager Mick O’Dwyer will be well aware of this scoring threat, particularly as he is without one of his best defenders, Patrick McWalter, who was ruled out for the rest of the season after sustained a broken kneecap in the first round win over Carlow.

“Losing McWalter was a big, big loss,” admits O’Brien. “He’s a very intelligent player and a good kicker of the ball which is important from the half-back line. Ciarán Hyland, on the plus side, is back and he’ll be in the reckoning for playing in defence. He had a neck problem, a small thing, but he just couldn’t run.

“He trained a week before the Carlow game, but he wasn’t ready. We were lucky enough to get over Carlow, but he’s had three weeks now so, hopefully, he’ll make some appearance at some stage.”

O’Dwyer had vocally called for a more neutral venue than Tullamore, which he says favoured Westmeath: “It’s a good journey all right,” says O’Brien, “but we’ll have to work with Tullamore.”

Meanwhile, Mayo manager John O’Mahony has handed four players – Chris Barrett, Séamus O’Shea, Alan Freeman and Enda Varley – their championship debuts after naming his side to face Sligo at Markievicz Park on Saturday.

And goalkeeper Brian Scanlon will make his senior debut for Limerick in Sunday’s clash with Waterford in Dungarvan.

Manager Mickey Ned O’Sullivan has still made four changes from that game. With Conor Mullane ruled out with a hamstring injury, Johnny McCarthy returns at full back.

Former dual star Stephen Lucey also returns from injury to replace Diarmuid Carroll in defence, while Pádraig Browne moves to right-half forward in place of John Mullane – with the experienced Stephen Kelly also starting in the full-forward line instead of Cormac Joyce-Power.

MAYO (SFC v Sligo): D Clarke; C Barrett, G Cafferkey, K Higgins; D Vaughan, T Cunniffe, K McLoughlin; T Parsons, R McGarrity; A Moran, S O’Shea, T Mortimer; C Mortimer, A Freeman, E Varley.

LIMERICK (SF v Waterford): B Scanlon; M O’Riordan, J McCarthy, A Lane; S Lavin, S Lucey, P Ranahan; J O’Donovan, J Galvin; P Browne, J Ryan, S Buckley; G Collins, I Ryan, S Kelly.