O’Toole relishing another outing on Croke Park stage

One of the stand-out performers in the recent Tailteann Cup semi-final against Offaly was Ronan O’Toole, who has been a mainstay for the Westmeath attack since the beginning of the year.

O’Toole has kicked 2-19 from play between the league and championship this year, but it is his off-the-ball wizardry which has really caught the eye, with the St Loman’s, Mullingar man pulling the strings in the vanguard and laying on as much as he scores.

Not shy on the big occasion, the talented playmaking forward was the Lake County’s top scorer against Kildare in the Leinster SFC semi-final. And while like many of his teammates he regrets Westmeath’s failure to push on against the Lilywhites, he believes that they have learned and grown in subsequent matches.

“Well from the start of the Tailteann Cup I think we’ve been progressively getting better. We took a break after Kildare and set our eyes on Laois,” O’Toole said in TEG Cusack Park last Tuesday. “From that we’ve just gone game by game, and I think with wins, grows a bit of confidence, and confidence in the way we play.

“I think we really expressed ourselves in Croke Park, implementing a lot more kick-passing in our play. We played well and deserved to win it on the day.”

At times, the semi-final outing against Offaly – in which O’Toole kicked four sublime points from play – looked extremely easy for Westmeath, compared to their initial outings against Laois and Carlow. The Mullingar man is expecting a different battle on July 9.

“We’ve had some tight games in it. We just went out and played our football and were happy with our football on the day. We think it’ll be much a tighter affair against Cavan,” O’Toole continued.

“You saw at the weekend [the All-Ireland SFC semi-final between Galway and Armagh] how it went to penalties. So we’ll just go out and play as best we can on the day.”

Cavan limped over the line against a game Sligo outfit in their Tailteann Cup semi-final, and while this might tempt some to believe that the Breffni men are there for the taking, O’Toole reckons that the narrowness of margins between the sides is a sign of Sligo’s strength, and not of any weakness in Cavan’s armour.

“They [Cavan] played Down and Fermanagh as well in the opening rounds and beat them easily enough, and they’d a very tight game against Sligo. But Sligo are very tough opposition and I’m sure Cavan will be well ready for this game as a result,” he stated.

“We haven’t really done our homework on Cavan specifically, we’re just focusing on ourselves this week, having a bit of a rest week.

“I’m sure Jack and the backroom team will have their homework done and we’ll have a look at Cavan and see where any of their weaknesses are, and see where they go from there.”

O’Toole has played twice in Croke Park this year, and with the Tailteann Cup final a curtain-raiser for the eagerly-awaited All-Ireland SFC semi-final between Galway and Derry, the St Loman’s clubman is looking forward to playing in front of a bigger crowd.

“It’s not often you get three days out in Croke Park in a year, which is the main positive of the Tailteann Cup. There’ll be nearly 60,000 hopefully between the two games, and that’s the biggest crowd I’ll have played in front of. So I’ll relish the challenge – I can’t wait for it,” he said.

“Hopefully we can get a big crowd. I’m sure the guys in the backroom are doing a lot of fundraising and marketing for it, and we hope we can get all Westmeath fans to the game. We’ve also got Galway there to get a bit more maroon and white in the background!

“It’s brilliant to be in a final, with silverware on the line. The Tailteann Cup is so good for so many counties because there’s something to strive for, so we’re looking forward to it and please God we can bring it home.”

Since it began in May, many minds have been changed about the value of the Tailteann Cup as a competition, but O’Toole was sure about its merits from the beginning.

“From the get-go, I was a huge advocate for it. It’s more games in a calendar year, and more games when you want to be playing,” he explained.

“We’re about to play our sixth championship game this year, whereas last year when we lost to Kildare [in Leinster], we were out.

“So this year we had four more games. That’s what every inter-county footballer wants, and to be playing on the big stage.”