Ronan O’Toole, Westmeath in action against Louth’s Tom Jackson in the NFL earlier this year. PHOTO: AIDAN DULLAGHAN

Exciting 2023 beckons for Westmeath’s flagship teams

The Gerry Buckley Column

Published: Fri 21 Oct 2022, 12:15 PM

Last updated: Fri 21 Oct 2022, 12:46 PM

For counties which have accumulated far more silverware than Westmeath over the years, the prospect at this time of year of being involved in big championship games the following summer - in one or both codes - has been a gimme for decades.

However, last Saturday’s live provincial football draws for 2023 were another reminder that next year is certain to bring an unprecedented buzz to Lake County GAA circles, with Dessie Dolan and Joe Fortune assured of leading their troops into a minimum of four and five high-profile matches respectively.

Our new football bainisteoir may be inexperienced in a managerial capacity per sé, but his status in these parts is such that he is certain to be respected by all and sundry as he attempts to – at least – maintain the progress attained under his fellow-county man Jack Cooney.

Westmeath seem to be always in the only pre-ordained quarter-final, regardless of having automatically qualified for it by virtue of reaching the previous year’s semi-final (as was the case earlier this year), and so it is again for 2023 with our game against Louth the only definite last-eight clash to emerge from the draw which took place at the RTÉ studios.

The Wee County’s profile was instantly lifted with the sensational appointment two years ago of Mickey Harte, Tyrone’s former triple All-Ireland winning manager from the noughties. Promotion from Division 4 followed and elevation to Division 2 was achieved earlier this year, with a narrow win against Westmeath in Ardee proving to be a crucial element in this. Harte will certainly be targeting a minimum of a Delaney Cup semi-final in year three of his project in a county whose wonderful stadium plans under the chairmanship of Peter Fitzpatrick TD highlight the clearly-defined Gaelic games’ ambitions in a soccer-mad county. As ever, let me wish those charged with the urgent improvement of Westmeath’s facilities well in their onerous work.

The two counties have previously met on 19 occasions in the senior football championship, with maroon and white-clad sides only victorious six times. Two of these were in the ‘back door’, including the first year of same in 2001 when Luke Dempsey’s charges triumphed in a lengthy campaign which many of us feel – this scribe included – was our best-ever opportunity to actually win the Sam Maguire Cup. The last meeting was in 2015 en route to THAT win against Meath. Indeed, the Royal County men, now under the tutelage of the legendary Colm O’Rourke, loom large on the horizon in 2023 also as they seem the most likely of the Offaly/Longford/Meath trio to come through to a penultimate round game against the Westmeath/Louth victors.

The main talking point about the overall draw came from across the Shannon where a lopsided Connacht scenario sees the ‘big three’ of Galway, Mayo and Roscommon on one side, and the Division 4 trio of Sligo, Leitrim and London, alongside non-league New York, on the other. This guarantee of a Sam slot for one of the latter four as provincial finalists, together with Westmeath’s definite Sam slot due to the wonderful Tailteann Cup win earlier this year, will unquestionably make for very interesting and competitive Divisions 2 and 3 campaigns next spring. It is a truly mouth-watering prospect to already know that Dolan’s troops will have three big games (one home, one away, and one at a neutral venue) after the Delaney Cup run ends. Who knows, that could well be in a final – against ‘perennial champions’ Dublin, in all probability.

The draw for the Leinster SFC in 2023 is as follows:

First round: Wicklow v Carlow; Wexford v Laois; Longford v Offaly

Quarter-finals: Kildare v Wicklow/Carlow; Dublin v Wexford/Laois; Meath v Longford/Offaly; Westmeath v Louth

Semi-finals: Kildare/Wicklow/Carlow v Dublin/Wexford/Laois; Meath v Longford/Offaly v Westmeath/Louth

The pre-defined round robin format in the small ball game meant that no actual draw was necessary last Saturday. Thanks to a historic share of the points at home to Wexford and a superb away win against Laois – I still get goose pimples when I reflect on just how well we played in Portlaoise in this year’s make-or-break match – Fortune’s talented crew will again pit themselves against the best of Leinster (and Connacht, and Ulster!) in the race for the Bob O’Keeffe Cup. I don’t think I will receive any angry texts, phone calls or emails when I state that the words ‘An Iarmhí’ will not be engraved on that famous cup next summer, our undoubted target more modest than that i.e. survival and, ideally, at least three points accumulated again in so doing.

This will be extremely difficult and the same ‘angry’ line above applies when I opine that the aforementioned survival will probably come down to a showdown with Antrim in the last of the five fixtures. This will be in TEG Cusack Park, a huge advantage, in what will be just one of two home games – a reverse of this year’s home/away scenario. Naturally, it is to be hoped that a point or two can somehow be garnered by the men in maroon (and green, assumedly, when Galway visit these parts) and white prior to the Glensmen’s visit to Mullingar.