Dolan 'very disappointed' with second league defeat

Unsurprisingly, Westmeath senior football manager Dessie Dolan was “very disappointed” when he spoke to the assembled media in Páirc Esler after his troops had been wheeled in by a late Down comeback which meant a second defeat from four National League Division 3 games for the Lake County.

When the 2004 All Star was asked if the defeat had been ‘hard to take’, he replied: “Absolutely. I thought the lads put in a massive performance. It was a very, very tough match played at a high tempo. In many aspects of the game, I was very happy, but very disappointed to come away with nothing from it.”

The visitors looked very likely to emerge with both points before David Gough awarded the Mourne Men a 53rd-minute penalty which was converted with aplomb, giving them a huge lift. In this regard, Dolan opined: “We got some great scores in the first half, but the penalty knocked us back and gave them momentum. I haven’t seen too many penalties given from that far out and I’d be unsure whether he (Liam Kerr) was in the square or not. There were a lot of calls in the second half that I would question. We felt we were hard done by. The crowd seemed to influence the referee and they appeared to get a lot of ‘home town’ decisions. We were finding it very hard to get frees. But, in fairness, Down fought back well.”

The Garrycastle maestro acknowledged that his players were downcast after the match, but he remained full of positivity about the future, stating: “Yes, the lads are down, but it’s the league and we haven’t even got out of February yet. These games are coming very close to each other and we have Antrim in eight days from now in Mullingar.

"I still think we are able for any of the teams in this division and we just have to keep working hard. We still have ten points to play for. We will have to try and win them, and see where that brings us. I keep saying these lads are amateurs and have to go to work on Monday morning.”

Looking further ahead, Dolan concluded: “The league is for learning. I am trying to bring on young players from the U20 squad. We are trying to have new talent emerging all the time. We still have big championship games to look forward to later.”