SFC: Kelly expecting ‘titanic battle’ in decider

Gerry Buckley reports

“We were very poor in the first half. We were lucky that Killucan hadn’t their shooting boots on because they could have been out of sight at half-time. We were completely out of it everywhere in that first half.”

This opening salvo from St Loman’s, Mullingar manager Declan Kelly neatly summed up his side’s Jekyll and Hyde performance in Saturday’s Westmeath senior football championship semi-final, with the champions ultimately edging through to their eighth successive decider mainly thanks to some superb point-scoring in the second moiety by John Heslin and Shane Dempsey.

Continuing on the theme of the Mullingar Blues’ inept first half display, the Offaly man added: “We were second to the ball. The list of what was going wrong is endless.

“I was very worried at half-time. We were hoping for the half-time whistle to come and that there mightn’t be as much damage done as there could have been, to see could we get in and have a chat about things, and sort things out.

“If we go into a county final and don’t perform in the first 30 minutes, we’ll be heading out the gate at half-time. It’s hard to put a finger on it, why we were so bad in that first half.”

Understandably, the winning bainisteoir picked out the aforementioned duo for special praise, opining: “John (Heslin) was getting a good bit of attention, but in the second half the ball started to stick inside a bit. He started to pop chances over, including a free from near the sideline.

“Shane (Dempsey) kicked a few great points as well and that was taking a bit of pressure off John because there was a couple of lads around him every time he got the ball.

“We started to win some 50/50 ball around the centre of the field which we hadn’t been doing in the first half. In the first half, we had been second to every ball. To have any hope of getting back into it, we needed to up the work rate in and around the middle of the field.”

As ever, Kelly didn’t panic and he used his subs well. “The lads off the bench did well, but that’s the way the game has gone. Even at that, it was a nervy enough finish when they got it back to two points.

“You might be sick of hearing me saying this, but it is mad competitive here in Westmeath. We played Killucan in the quarter-final a couple of years ago and only edged it by a couple of points as well. They are a well-seasoned outfit. They took out Coralstown/Kinnegad, and at half-time today they looked odds on to make a county final,” he added.

Kelly concluded as follows: “But we’re back in that county final, and whether it be The Downs or Tyrrellspass, it will be a titanic battle.”