Westmeath held their own against Dublin for the first half at Croke Park on Sunday. At the break, they trailed by just a point.
It was not until the second 35 minutes that the gap in quality between the two teams began to show.
Westmeath's attempts to narrow that gap between the two sides went beyond defensive football - they also employed some more cynical tactics.
Post-match, Westmeath manager Tom Cribbin admitted that his team had tried to antagonise Diarmuid Connolly. It nearly worked too. 29 minutes into the game, Connolly was shown a yellow card after putting a headlock on Westmeath half-back James Dolan. That happened after Dolan had tousled Connolly's hair. Dolan was also shown a yellow card for the incident.
He can get a bit exciting at times and probably we were looking for him to get excited.
We needed a whammy. We have to be fair. We have to be honest. We were hoping to try and entice him. Sure that’s what most teams do. But he’s a fabulous footballer. Just a fabulous footballer. One of the best in the country, if not the best.
Such methods will not be found in Jim Gavin's arsenal of tactics. Well, that's what he said after the game at least.
Yeah, it’s certainly not language that we use. We want defenders to win their own individual battles but not in any malicious or devious way. We want to play the game the right way. Sometimes players make mistakes, we understand that.
I’m sure that number seven didn’t mean to do what he did but that just happens I suppose in the heat of the moment. Diarmuid is one of our most skilful players. We’ve seen in the past some of our skilful players being targeted as well. They didn’t complain.
They never do complain to me. They just get on with it and that’s one of their hallmarks, that resilience.
Photo by David Maher/Sportsfile
