I mentioned yesterday that we have a challenge match with Westmeath tomorrow night and now, with my thanks to Mick who was able to find out more about the event today from a well-placed source within the Westmeath camp, I can fill you in on the where and when. The match will take place at the St Loman’s club pitch in Mullingar (here it is – as you can see it’s just off the N4 so is very easy to get to, especially from this side of the world) and throw-in is set for 7.30 pm. I’m half-thinking of heading down to it – seeing as I didn’t make it across the Atlantic last weekend – but I’m not 100% sure yet as to whether I will or not.
Back in the camp to face our jet-lagged heroes will be the Lake County’s best forward (one of the better forwards in the whole country, in fact): hot on the heels of yesterday’s Indo article which claimed that Denis Glennon had opted out of the inter-county panel came a report in today’s edition saying that he’d rejoined it. Glennon is quite a talent – as this effort in the league against Tyrone confirms – and his presence in the Westmeath side would make the match a more meaningful affair so let’s hope he lines out for the Lake County tomorrow evening.
any word on how this went?
I was at this challenge match last night. Mayo won by a couple of points by my reckoning (19-17). Mayo (subject to correction here) Clarke, O’Malley,Conroy, Higgins, Gardiner, Howley, Heaney, Parsons, McGarrity, B Kelly, Dillon, Kilcoyne, Sweeney, Moran, Padden. Subs Vaughan for Howley, Mortimer for Dillon. Kilcoyne star man for Mayo. Parsons Heaney and Dillon also looked sharp. Higgins very rusty, Moran needs to get fitter for championship football, McGarrity very quiet game. Westmeath introduced Glennon at half-time and he was instrumental in them getting quite a few easy scores.
Thanks for that, Richard. I couldn’t make it to the game myself.
I don’t think that you would have learned too much that we didn’t already know WJ. We started well and were about 6-2 up after 15 mins. Killer was very impressive, taking on his man and driving forward with purpose every time he got possession which was often. He must have ended up with 8 or 9 points of our total. We seem spoiled for half forwards and it’s hard to see johno dropping any of the 3 that started in NY. I was surprised how slow Barry Moran looked even allowing for the fact that they have had a hard week of it and he has been out for a long time. We faded out of the game totally for the first 15 mins of the second half and we shipped some very soft scores during this period. Someone at the NY game also noted that our defence is a cause for concern despite our apparent meanness on goal concessions lately. All in all though, you can’t be overly critical of a performance in a meaningless challenge match after travelling halfway across the world
well, at least that’s one game where we opened up positively! As you say, it’s just a challenge match so too much shouldn’t be read into it. Killer’s form is a positive, though – given our poor scoring record in the league, the more scoring forwards we have, the better.
I thought Dillon was excellent 5 pts first half, pace power and accuracy and retired in 2nd half due to tiredness having only returned from US that morning at 11am – Kilcoyne still not doing it for me – untested in championship flutters to decive but when things are going well he’s pretty useful.
What about the defence. Who impressed???