Westmeath's Kerry-born manager Tomás Ó Flatharta hopes to reap the rewards of his own and his players' hard work, writes Tom Humphries.
SUNDAY LOOMS and Westmeath, without drumbeat or fanfare, loom with it. A defiantly unfashionable combo going to challenge Dublin in the great swinging house of blues. Despite being the last team before Dublin to win a Leinster title and despite winning out from a difficult second tier in this year's National League, Westmeath seem resolutely immune to hype.
No surprise then they are managed by a Kerryman, who describes going to Croker to play the Dubs as being akin to playing a team of "All Stars really, just giants". Poor Westmeath. Hopefully they can keep the ball kicked out.
Tomás Ó Flatharta has been a good while out of west Kerry but the place never let go of him. He still deflects incoming questions with questions of his own. Still downplays everything. Still wields the word "yerra" like a light sabre.
"So what do you want to know," he asks, "how I got from west Kerry to Westmeath is it?"
"Well . . ."
"No helicopter anyway. I came the long way round."
"More mileage?"
"Yerra I wouldn't be that cute. You'd have to be from south Kerry for that."
There's no helicopter. Ó Flatharta heads out from the AIB branch at Bank Centre in Ballsbridge, in the heart of Dublin 4, every training night in just enough time to beat the traffic and to continue his odd missionary vocation as manager of the Westmeath football team.
It's an odd journey to have taken from Dingle but even odder when you consider he never really intended to make it. When Páidí Ó Sé was appointed Westmeath manager in the winter of 2003 he rang Ó Flatharta, an old playing colleague and friend from playing days with the Dingle club, and asked him if he would come to Westmeath to help pick a few selectors.
Maybe he has been out of Kerry too long because Ó Flatharta walked straight into his friend's trap. "I said I'd give him a hand with it but sure Páidí had other ideas unbeknownst to myself. He asked me then. I thought I was out of it. I said: 'Listen Páidí I'm living in Dublin, the traffic, the work etc. I'd be sitting in the car in traffic.' But of course Páidí would have none of it. 'Yerra, we'll get you down. We'll send a helicopter for you.' He got Darragh to ring me. So I spoke to the fellas in the bank in the end and told them about it and the AIB were very supportive. They said to go for it and they'd work around it. Here I am five years later. Still there."
Starting into Westmeath as Sancho Panza to Páidí was a great adventure in tilting at the windmills. They enjoyed it. A short while ago somebody tugged Ó Flatharta's sleeve and reminded him of the first lines of the first chapter of the story.
In November 2003 Westmeath played a challenge game against Dublin up in St Jude's on Dublin's southside. Ó Flatharta remembers the quality of Westmeath's performance with one word borrowed from the Dublin vernacular, cat. Westmeath were cat. So was the weather.
"So come here," said the man tugging at Tomás's sleeve, "Come here, is it true that Páidí turned and said to you 'Oh Jesus, what the f*** did we let ourselves in for here?'" Ó Flatharta laughed. If Páidí didn't say it he should have.
They went off to Sunderland soon after for a training weekend. Bit of a get-to-know-you session mixed with the chance to lay down a few markers. Did a bit of training when they got there, let the boys out on the loose that night. Went to watch a soccer game in the Stadium of Light. Ó Flatharta had to leave at half-time. "The man that was with me couldn't stomach watching soccer any longer so I had to leave with him."
The adventure was under way. Through a good O'Byrne Cup campaign they attracted capacity crowds to Cusack Park. Then the league was upon them like a bucket of iced water. It took two draws and a win in the last three games to keep them in Division One. Everything else was disaster.
But they kept on keeping on and took that year's Leinster title, in a massive reversal of the hypnotic powers of GAA tradition. Teams like Westmeath are supposed to be provincial championship fodder. Two Kerrymen had changed the mindset. "Eh, two lunatics from Kerry, you mean" insists Ó Flatharta politely.
The next year it unravelled slightly and the Páidí era ended in a dressingroom in Ennis after a qualifiers defeat to Clare. Páidí told the men from the lakes he had promised two years and he had given two years. Everyone nodded including Ó Flatharta. Two good years. Thank you and goodnight.
And of course that evening his phone starting ringing. Players asking would he step up from being the drills and running man to being front of house. He deflected them of course but in September when the county board came looking there was something in him that meant he just couldn't say no. "They asked was I interested. I thought about it for a while and took it over then."
He admits he had sort of cheated the system. The only team he had managed before that was an under-16 team at Kilmacud Crokes. He was involved as a selector on the seniors when Páidí came calling. "But it happened all of a sudden. I had no ambitions whatsoever to be in charge of any team at all really."
And here he is. From the home of anti-hype to seething Croker. When he began the two years training Westmeath with Páidí at the helm he sought advice from sources far and wide. When he took the tiller he did the same but puts his hand up to having made more than his share of mistakes.
This year, though, there is a solidity to Westmeath. When they beat Longford in a less than thrilling opening round in Leinster, Longford manager Luke Dempsey commented they played in an Ulster style and they have nailed themselves together from the back.
They conceded just 2-55 in regular games through the league playing out of a division which included Dublin, Armagh and Meath. They had a for-and-against difference of 23 points which equalled that of Kerry as the best in the top two tiers of football life.
And they now have a little strength in depth too. The two changes made from the Offaly quarter-final for tomorrow's game aren't as disastrous as they once were. David Duffy, who comes in at midfield for Martin Flanagan, looked very good in Parnell Park in February when the sides met for the first time in the league, while young Dermot Bannon, who comes into the forward line instead of Alan Mangan, did plenty of damage to the Dubs in the Division Two play-off final in Navan in April.
And at the back Westmeath's solidity has a lot to do with a willingness to change things. Kieran Gavin has moved to full back from a wing-forward posting and has made that line a good deal more solid. John Keane's 2004 form has returned while the tactic of dropping former full back Denis O'Donoghue from a midfield spot to a sweeping position in front of the full-back line has worked well.
Meanwhile Derek Heavin's years of wandering are over and he has settled in as centre back between Michael Ennis and Damien Healy, neither of whom is averse to bucking Westmeath's defensive image by sallying upfield to take scores.
"What we found," says Ó Flatharta, "when we came to Westmeath was that they were very eager to play. There were some very good footballers there. They weren't used to the discipline and the regime it needed to get the best out of themselves. Maybe it might have been tough for some of them at the beginning but they got used to it and started enjoying it then. Westmeath had won a minor and under-21 All-Ireland and we had a fair few of those lads."
So a lot of the work ethic of the current side has been brought about from Ó Flatharta's willingness to change and the players' acceptance of the need to work harder. "I got more flexible as we went on. I maybe got the lads involved more in the way things were run. Now I get their views as well, their input on the way things are being done.
"We can't stop people from talking about the way we play. I am delighted lads roll up their sleeves and put in the work. I think it is great to see forwards coming back and tracking and blocking down balls. We don't play the way teams played 30 years ago where it was an extremely negative way of playing. A player has the freedom to go and work from anywhere he wants to really.
"A lot of the way we play comes from the players' involvement in the way things are being done. It can be seen in the spirit we are playing with at the moment. They are enjoying their football."
He talks about Dublin, about the last championship meeting when Westmeath managed just five points against the Sky Blues and conceded they probably weren't up to scratch that day.
So straight up, are they up to scratch for tomorrow? Do Westmeath believe in their hearts they can win an All-Ireland?
He pauses. "We don't think that far ahead at all. This year the league was good enough to us really. We took every game as it came and it was a matter of trying to improve in every game we played in. We were just trying to play better football. We are still doing that, taking every game as it comes and not looking beyond that. There is no choice really."
And it's not a west Kerry answer really. Coming from a county where the county side's every performance is viewed and analysed in terms of whether it would be good enough for September doesn't equip you for the long haul that is revitalising Westmeath football. As Ó Flatharta says, you go into the job knowing there will be a few good days and a long litany of miserable ones.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step and keeps on like that step after step after step. Westmeath didn't think of anything but Offaly after they beat Longford. For the past while they have thought about Dublin and if they win tomorrow they will walk away from the epicentre of the quake and think about Wexford.
Meanwhile, step by step they head to Croker. The long way.
