Seán Morantalks to Westmeath's manager Tomás Ó Flatharta on their excellent start to the season

Westmeath's win in Derry on Sunday propelled Tomás Ó Flatharta's team into a clear lead at the top of the Division One B table after two matches. With victories over two of the divisional favourites - Laois were their victims on day one - the midland county now has an ideal platform to push its claims for top-flight status in next year's reorganised National Football League.

According to Ó Flatharta the ambition at the start of the campaign was to raise playing standards after a season in the lower reaches last year and maintain progress back to the sort of performance levels that saw the county win a first Leinster championship in 2004 when Ó Flatharta was assistant to Páidí Ó Sé.

"We were in Division Two last year and worked hard to achieve promotion and we're up there now but it would have been pointless unless we started playing to a higher level. It's a good start, four points from two matches and we're happy enough.

"It's a huge difference. Games are played at a higher intensity and against very good teams. In Division Two you get away with mistakes whereas now we would be punished for making the same errors. It's very good preparation for the championship."

The good start to the league wasn't an obvious prospect during a patchy pre-season but a poor showing against Dublin, who also caned them in last year's All-Ireland quarter-final, prompted some useful soul searching according to the manager.

"If you look at it, at the beginning of the year we got a right kick in the backside from Dublin in the O'Byrne Cup. We had to sit down and review things again, look at where our weaknesses were and I think we might have identified a few of those and worked on them - not that we have everything solved at this stage. It might have been a good start for us because we began to work on things and got a few of them right. That's shown itself in the past few games we've played."

Sunday's win was all the more unexpected because of an injury being carried by Dessie Dolan, their top forward who played a stormer in the opening fixture. In the event he played well again and landed two points.

"Dessie picked up a groin injury against Laois - not the same one as before - and we rested him last week. It's a concern for us the injury he has but we'll just have to keep a very close eye on him."

Ó Flatharta doesn't subscribe to the current unrest in some quarters about the proliferation of yellow cards in matches, saying that the issue of indiscipline isn't just one for referees.

"We haven't had problems with that. I think anyway that a lot of the onus is on players themselves to keep discipline. A referee makes a decision and you just get on with it."