Páidí Ó Sé had completed the consolation speech in the Wexford dressing-room when he was asked for a quick word by the media. "Come on," he says, "follow me." Leading the horde back into his own territory Ó Sé expands on the previous 70 minutes, which has seen his Westmeath team set up their first Leinster football final appearance since 1949.

"Of the three games that we've played in Croke Park this year, I was most worried out there. You might not believe that. Against Dublin and Offaly I felt more comfortable on the line. With Wexford, there was no give and at no stage did any of their players put their head down.

"They always battled, even when we got the second goal they never threw in the towel. What got us across the winning line here was that we were mentally prepared for a hard game."

With that comes the suggestion Westmeath could have killed off the game in the first half. Ó Sé furrows his brow: "The day of doing those things are long gone. It was never going to be a runner that we were going to do that and we never set out to do that."

Then he throws his head back, stares at the ceiling, and starts talking boxing. "We set out to keep our opponents in the middle of the ring, box cleverly and pick our points. If the opportunity of a knockout punch came our way we'd take it and two of those came our way."

Without any further delay the obvious question is asked. Playing Laois in the Leinster final means standing on the sideline alongside his old manager and mentor, and oft tormentor, Mick O'Dwyer.

"I thought I'd seen it all when I came across his bow when he was training Kildare," says Ó Sé, "and I was training Kerry. Not in my wildest dreams did I think that I would meet him in a Leinster final with me on one side and him on the other. But that's the way that cards are dealt and it's a great occasion for them to be there."

On the way out, Dessie Dolan is asked for his version on the four-point victory, and he starts by paying tribute to Wexford: "They are a good side, and if we didn't prepare for them properly we could have come unstuck, but we prepared very well. They were a tough side to beat and only for the goals it would have been very tight.

"But I'm playing with Westmeath for six years and we always had a team with potential, but it's great to be actually in a final now. Laois are a good side and we will have our work cut out to beat them."

Back outside the Wexford dressing-room, manager Pat Roe has completed his team talk. His head is still held high. but there's no hiding the disappointing. We ask him what went wrong for the first 25 minutes.

"I've absolutely no idea. I mean, we were as well prepared as we could have been, but it just didn't happen for us. It wasn't like we weren't getting our share of possession. But up front we were falling well short of scoring options."

Getting back to two points did offer Roe a glimmer of hope: "Yeah, and I thought we'd got the momentum going. They'd fought so well to get back in contention, when a lot of teams would have rolled over had they found them in that position. So having got out of there I felt we had the upper hand.

"Westmeath seemed to be struggling, playing a little precariously. But that first goal was just killer. Gave them exactly the lift they needed.

"Hopefully, we can learn something from this, but of course it's going to be very difficult to come again in six days. And not just because of the rest. I'll just try to get them mentally right, because that's my job, but I know it's not going to be easy."