It took, in the words of Westmeath manager Tom Cribbin, "a miracle" to beat Meath. That was the easy part, as Westmeath now need something better than a miracle to beat Dublin.
That would be the general prophesy going into Sunday's Leinster football final, although for Westmeath captain Ger Egan, there is no hope without belief. Egan always believed they could beat Meath, despite being 10 points down as half-time approached, and if few people are giving them any hope against Dublin, that's not Westmeath's problem.
“We have to get your own performance right,” says Egan. “Our style of football, we’ve gone out and we’ve put big scores on the board. We’d be stupid if we didn’t try and do that again.
“Dublin have a bit of flair. They’re the best football team in the country, with the best forwards. Obviously we’ll have to tighten up at the back, but we’ll be hugely disappointed if we don’t win. And we’re there to win, simple as that.
Impressed
“You don’t go into any final just to compete. They’re the best team in the country and the style of football they’re playing, you can’t be anything but impressed. But again we’re going out to play our style, and all we can do is worry about our performance.
“It’s bonus territory. The atmosphere has been phenomenal since beating Meath, and we’re relishing the whole occasion. We’re just growing and growing with each game.”
Egan clearly speaks from the heart. It helps to have an equally confident manager, who also speaks from the heart, and in pinpointing the difference in Westmeath this season, Egan highlights the outspokenness of Cribbin – even when that was directed at his own players, following their relegation to division three in the league.
“He’s a passionate man and we respect him 100 per cent. He tries to get the best out of you , and everybody on the backroom team is the same. So maybe he was right, that we didn’t have those leaders, like we had against Meath. We took it on the chin. You’d be wrong if you took it any other way.
“It was up to the older lads to raise their levels, and the young lads brought the youth and energy and it’s after coming together at the right time.”
And it's not just the manager who is instilling this belief. Cribbin, himself a three-time ironman triathlete, appointed Gerry Duffy as team fitness coach. Mullingar native Duffy has completed 32 marathons around Ireland in 32 days (in 2010), and followed that in 2011 with the "Deca" ironman challenge, or 10 ironman events over 10 consecutive days.
“Some of the stuff Gerry does, I don’t know how he does it,” says Egan. “But he just says it’s all in the mind, that you never know what you can do if you put your mind to it. And I think his expertise and the levels he’s working off are working on us.”
Beating Meath for the first time in championship history has raised the level of belief in other ways too: John Heslin can't fear Dublin after the way he finished off Meath the last day, and Kieran Martin is also primed for another onslaught of attacking football.
“He’s a monster of a man,” Egan says of Martin, who scored 2-3 against Meath. “The first goal, against Meath, he went through three or four lads, I think. And to do it once, fair enough. To do it twice, it just shows what he’s capable of.”
Slow start
Still there was that troublingly slow start against Meath, and without that “miracle” – when Westmeath out-scored them 2-9 to 0-1 in the final 20 minutes - it would have been a very different feeling leaving Croke Park last Sunday week.
“Dublin are going to be more ruthless. They’re not going to let you back into the game the same way. That’s why we’re going to have to start an awful lot better, get the intensity up straight away. I think the lads will. We’ll relish the occasion.
“We’re in bonus territory, we’ve nothing to lose. Hopefully we can get our defensive system a little bit better, as in holding them a bit more, but we’re definitely going to go out and attack them the way we can. If we go out and cause a shock, like we did the last day, so be it”.
