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Foreign game at home in Erin Longford 2-13
Westmeath 1-13
Leinster Senior Football Championship
By David Thorpe
It had, said Longford manager Luke Dempsey “been a long time coming”.
Six years to be precise since the Longford football team last recorded
a Leinster Championship win.
But such was the quality of their second-half performance at Pearse Park
that the Blues will now be thinking of themselves as genuine contenders
for the title.
For the hardy hordes of Longford fans dreams of provincial Championship
glory were a long way from their thoughts after a dire first-half with
Westmeath leading by 1-10 to 0-5.
The Westmeath goal came courtesy of the excellent Martin Flanagan, who
finished off a flowing passing move on 20 minutes.
Dempsey told his players at half-time that: “None of them had played
to the level they should be performing at,” and the Longford players
took his words to heart, recording 2-2 from play at the start of a second
period they totally dominated.
Key to their victory was Brian Kavanagh, the All-Star nominee at corner-forward
who hit both goals. The first was a poacher’s effort after a mistake
by Westmeath goalkeeper Gary Connaughton, the second a clinical finish
on 40 minutes as Westmeath were overrun in every area of the field.
Westmeath only scored three points in the second- half. That manager Tomas
O’Flatharta chose to replace four of his six starting forwards hints
at the reasons for their defeat.
The two Westmeath forwards who were not replaced, Dessie Dolan and Dennis
Glennon, hit 0-8 between them.
However Longford’s scores were spread much better throughout the
team, with Paul Barden, Trevor Smullen and Liam Keenan all contributing
points to compliment the 0-6 hit by man- of-the-match Kavanagh.
Having watched his team fall at the first hurdle in Leinster for the second
successive season Westmeath boss O Flatharta said: “Its a disappointing
day, the two goals they got killed us off.
“It’s very hard to restart the engine after something like
that happens to you. We have come back before and are determined to do
that again, but Longford deserved their win”.
Longford now advance to face Laois in the Leinster quarter-finals —
a scenario which Dempsey, described as “exciting”.
He added: “We will have to tackle better against better teams, we
have plenty of strength in depth at the moment, and have plenty to look
forward to this season”.
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