Garrycastle stand on the brink of historic Leinster victory

IT was almost inevitable that last Friday's pre-Leinster SFC final media briefing would begin with talk of the chronic floods which gripped Athlone in recent weeks.However, the desperate nature of the floods haven't managed to derail Garrycastle's preparations ahead of the massive clash with Portlaoise at the weekend.Training has been taking place as usual and although several Garrycastle players have been struggling with mild bouts of flu' and sickness over the past week or so, manager Anthony Cunningham is relatively confident of having a full strength panel to choose from for the provincial decider."A few of our players have been down with colds and flu' and it's very hard for the players to train in these conditions. It's always a slight worry when players pick up illnesses and it can hamper their energy levels and so on, but it's nothing out of the ordinary and these things happen at this time of the year," said Cunningham."We had a perfect case in point a few weeks ago when Conal Keaney, a key player for Ballyboden St Enda's, missed our semi-final match because of illness. It hits every team at this stage of the year and you just have to cope with it and hope the affected players are okay on the day. I'm fairly hopeful everybody will be available to us at the weekend. Obviously, Patrick Mulvihill came off against Ballyboden with a hamstring problem and he's a major doubt at this stage, but he's been working on it since the semi-final and we'll probably know if he's okay on Friday or Saturday - but not before then."We hope to have Shane Mulvihill available as well. Shane has missed a lot of football because of a hamstring problem but he's getting closer now and could be available. John O'Shaughnessy missed a lot of football in the early part of the year but he's ready now as well, but Padraig Rattigan has an ankle injury which forced him to miss training last weekend. Hopefully Padraig can do a bit of training this week and be ready for the game. It's always important to have every option possible going into a big final."I suppose we have a fairly settled starting line-up at the moment and you're always wary of changing a winning formula, but there's a few lads knocking on the door and training really well at the moment - the likes of Alan Daly and Tom McHugh, then there's Donovan Hermbusche. These lads are pushing really hard for a starting place and that's the way you want it," added Cunningham.Portlaoise beat Clara in the other semi-final last weekend and are rated as favourites to win the All-Ireland by bookmakers.Cunningham knows Portlaoise are formidable opposition and acknowledged their possession game as one of Portlaoise's main strengths."They (Portlaoise) are a quality football team," said Cunningham."I'm very aware they are fancied to go all the way in the All-Ireland but it's our job to try to stop them. We will be doing our very best to do so but it's going to be a very difficult challenge. We'll be asking the players to lift themselves for one more final push and I'm confident they will respond in kind. We work on moving the ball quickly and getting our defenders, particularly our wing-backs, involved in attacks, and I think that's a very important factor in the modern game."We have been scoring well in recent games and it's vital we take our chances against a very good Portlaoise team. We have been concentrating in our own game since the semi-final win and feel our players - and our panel - is good enough to win this thing. Obviously, Portlaoise will feel similar about it and will be going all out to win, but we have some fine footballers and their time has come to make a real impression on the Leinster championship," the manager added.If Garrycastle are to prove successful on Sunday, they will become the first team from Westmeath to win this particular honour.But Cunningham is not focusing too much on this."We haven't really talked about that as a group," he said."We've been taking it one step at a time since beating Tyrrellspass in the county semi-final and I think that's the only way to go about it. Of course it's great for the club to be representing the county in a Leinster decider, but it's very important we stay concentrated on what we're trying to achieve as a club and take it one step at a time. Hopefully the lads can play to their true ability once again and come home with the Leinster title," he concluded.