Finnegan: ‘We're exactly where we want to be'

Westmeath ladies football manager Sean Finnegan was in a very upbeat mood last Sunday afternoon in Kinnegad after his charges ended their Division 1 programme with a ten-point victory against Tipperary.

The bainisteoir opined: “It’s great to finish the league on a high. I’m delighted with that. It was a difficult league and we always knew it would be, but to start with a win (against Monaghan) and finish with a win is great. 

“I’m delighted for the girls. They gave a great performance out there today. Tipperary are a good team and they asked us questions there in the second half, but we responded well and took some very good scores.

“We got exactly what we wanted out of the league. I said at the start that we had three aims – to stay in the division; to be competitive; and to identify the 25/30 girls we want to move on with. And we’ve done that. 

“Would I have liked to have won a few more matches? Of course, I would, but I’m realistic too – the Dublins, the Mayos and the Corks, they are good teams and we’ve got to get there. There was nothing in a number of our games against the top teams. We were in those games until the last few minutes.”

The Lake County girls now face a far-from-ideal delay ahead of the championship, but Finnegan remained positive.

“We play Dublin in the Leinster final on June 30, That’s 13 weeks away. We’ll take a week off and then we’ll start preparing for that. We have a lot of young girls doing exams and there will be club championship games as well. 

“Thankfully, we have no injury worries at the moment. We have a clean bill of health. We got an opportunity today to play five or six girls who hadn’t got a lot of game time in the league, and they played very well. 

“Look, we’re exactly where we want to be.”