NFL Div. 2

[Mentalman]

Resisted commenting on the game until now, I wanted to watch it a few more times.

Firstly congratulations to the lads, as said above, unlike our previous two division 2 wins this decade, this one was against better quality teams as a whole, rather than effectively the bottom 16 counties in the country.

Also as said previously as far a championship predictions are concerned we can't draw any conclusions given the respective absences, which is good, no one will be getting ahead of themselves. In some ways the match will be of more use to Dublin, in helping weed out those who definitely won't be making their championship squad. The Meath contributors would be very familiar with this strategy from the Boylan era, as I remember from my time living in Navan, league games were more akin to being fecked into the arena at the Colliseum, with the fans giving their thumbs up, or more frequently "no addition" verdicts to various pretenders to the squad. For Westmeath it's given O'Flatherta some pleasant selection issues, particularly in the midfield/half forward areas.

On the game itself I'd echo Craoi's sentiments, very hard to separate the Westmeath players. Buddha was unfortunate to have to make way, and is running into a nice bit of form, and giving performances more in line with those shown for his club. Hopefully these last couple of games against good opposition will give Bannon the confidence he was so short of to know he can compete at this level. Glennon is really being marked out for special attention, which is a back handed compliment, showing he worries opposition defenses. His histrionics are at times hard to stomach but I think they just come with the package. Wilson has had a great league and has really stepped up, with a lot of other players, so far this year. Doran Harte, along with John Smyth, are the type of players every county needs - no nonsense, do a job anywhere type of guys who would go through a wall for the jersey. I haven't seen Flan, for a big strong fit guy, get around the pitch so much in years, and has added the long range scoring ability the likes of Tommy Carr was bemoaning the county being without. O'Donaghue again is another no nonesense commited player. Our half back line, arguably our most experienced line, is our real hidden strength. Not only is each individual a good marker, and hard worker, but either wing isn't afraid to get forward, and can make and take scores. Strangely I think our fullback line have had better games. John Keane can definitely play better and mark tighter, and I felt he got drawn into some physical exchanges with Vaughan in particular where he would normaly concentrate on the ball. Gavin did OK, and has been a good addition this year, but again has a tendency to concentrate on not letting his man inside him, instead of getting out in front.  Francis Boyle has had a great league and really gives the opposition problems with his rampaging runs, as well as providing us with great out balls. Finally Connaughton. A lot of what is said about him is true, but I wouldn't swap him for diamonds - the man is an eccentric, but is so passionate about his county, as well as being one hell of a shot stopper. I think Dolan's introduction was more of the morale boosting type, and was designed to push them over the line, and give Dublin another target to worry about, and it seemed to work - one of their forwards was booked for fouling him within minutes of his introduction, plus we closed out the game after not scoring for about 15 minutes.

From the Westmeath perspective as a whole it's been a satisfactory league. We've seen the emergence of a few lads as genuine intercounty players (Gavin/Boyle/Duffy/Harte/Bannon), and the reinvigoration of the more experienced lads, and equally importantly a definite method of playing, something I haven't been too slow to criticise O'Flatherta about in the past. Now maybe that method isn't to everyone's liking, and god knows it's not pretty on the eye, but at least it's there, it's effectve, and every player coming in seems to know what is expected of them. The other thing we've learned is that we are not a one player team, as some lazy journos have said, and can live without Dessie. Not that we'd want to, as I think he, through his work rate, never mind his scoring, is the leader of side that is a good mix of experience and youth.

But as I said before, the league is the league, and all will be for naught if Longford dump us out as they did last year. At least we'd hope that we can try to be competitvie even without Dessie and Duffy if needs be. A couple of months ago if I'd been told neither, never mind both, of them wouldn't feature I definitely would have written off our chances.