Wallace has confidence Lake County can match Kildare

Kevin Egan

Given the league campaign that has just finished, it feels rude not to start a conversation with Westmeath captain Ronan Wallace by checking for scar tissue.

To play badly and finish bottom of a league table, any athlete would be unhappy with that, but they could make peace with it. But to finish bottom of the table, without a win, when just two counties (Kerry and Monaghan) across the entire Allianz Football League outscored the team?

Even when you have conceded the most of any team over the four divisions, that feels a little unjust.

So, what has the recovery process entailed – shaking a fist at the sky, hours of therapy, ritual sacrifice of a newborn goat to appease the sporting Gods?

“Ah no, we’re hanging in there!” he smiles.

“I suppose after the disappointment of a game, and there were a lot of those league games where we were very disappointed not to get a result, you kind of reflect a day or two after where you see how well you performed, how well the team performed. You can take consolation. Obviously, you're not getting a result but it's a stepping stone towards a bigger thing.

“It's a lot of these lads' first year starting for Westmeath and then you're playing against high quality Division Two opposition, which is a step up from where some lads have come from.”

Was some degree of a step back inevitable, when players like John Heslin, James Dolan and Kevin Maguire all stepped away together?

“It's a big loss to lose those three lads and then to lose Ronan O’Toole, David Lynch and Andy McCormack as well to travel,” Wallace acknowledges.

“It was tough but that happens in sport, you have transition there. I think Dermott (McCabe) and Mark (McHugh) and Diarmuid (Scullion) have done a fantastic job in not using that as an excuse for lads. It would be easy going into Division Two and saying, ‘oh look we've lost this, we've lost that’. I don't think we've ever used that as an excuse. We've just put the shoulders on the wheel and really got behind what the management team wanted us to do and that's testament to the younger lads coming through who want to play for Westmeath.”

Wallace is speaking at the Leinster SFC launch, where the contributions from across the province are varied. Liam Coleman, Wexford captain and a master’s student of psychology, talks about culture change, and changing the experience of playing for the county.

Mikey Bambrick speaks about the team coming together in the aftermath of the debacle of Shane Curran’s departure so close to the championship. Kevin Feely talks about blending the new rules of the game with the traditional aspects of Kildare’s footballing DNA, and working with the wildly oscillating emotions of the Kildare GAA public.

For Wallace, and by extension for Westmeath, it feels like it’s much simpler. Just stop conceding so much, and they’ll be fine?

“I think so, yeah. We're putting up serious scores, but we are shipping them, which is not what you want to see. I think it's something we have to work on. We have the two weeks there to work on the defensive structure. It's hard, it's 11 on 11, it's a lot of one-on-one defending, so it's an art in itself which I suppose over the last few years has been lost with teams having 13-14 men behind the ball where you can just defend space.

“It's just about finding that balance, not turning the ball over easily, giving away cheap scores, so we'll have to work on that heading into the Kildare game.”

This time 12 months ago, Westmeath’s representative at this function was Kevin Maguire, who ironically lamented the loss of man-on-man battles in the full-back/full-forward lines in Gaelic football. No doubt the Caulry man would have relished the new paradigm.

“Kevin was a great one on one defender, probably one of the best full backs around for the last number of years,” Wallace says.

“It's probably bred into some lads that they're very good man-markers and it's probably been lost over the last few years. It's going to have to slowly work its way back into the system.”

So, is it a case of the new rules not really suiting Westmeath then?

“I think it suits us, 100%. We have the forwards up front. Luke Loughlin is really flying under these new rules. There's Danny McCartan and these lads, they're thriving. Even Ray (Connellan) kicking three two-pointers the last day, it was fantastic. I think it is suiting us. I suppose it's a case of just stop shipping the scores and keeping our own scores going over; we'll be positive now.”

Okay, positive it is. What’s achievable in Leinster?

“I think a Leinster final is definitely achievable. We have Kildare up first in Newbridge here, they’re after getting promotion, we're after going down, but I think we're on the same level, quality-wise, player-wise. Then Louth, Wexford or Laois.

“We played Louth in Cusack Park in the first round of the league; it was highly competitive. We were up until they got the goal in the last few minutes. We still fought back to try and get to a draw and then they kicked a couple of scores. So we believe a Leinster final is definitely achievable.

“It's on the day then who we play. It could be Meath, it could be Dublin, it could be any of them.”

And on a personal note? “Obviously you'd love to finish your career with a Leinster medal, that would be the ultimate goal.

“From a personal level, an All-Star nomination would be great either. I suppose from a Westmeath point of view, our aim is to be a highly competitive team, around Division Two, pushing for Division One, competing in the All-Ireland series.

“Hopefully there's a big push with the county board for this Centre of Excellence, that we're not just in limbo but we're actually pushing to raise the standards around the county, to create a good culture, and that's the ultimate goal I hope”.

But all politics is local, and Wallace is proud of the fact that whatever happens from now on, 2025 has seen him break new ground on behalf of Multyfarnham, his home club. Wearing the Westmeath captain’s armband is up there with anything that he would hope to achieve on a football field.

“I think I'm the first, it's an absolute privilege for the club and myself. It's great” he says.

“In the history of Multy, we've always struggled for numbers. We've always struggled to beat teams back in the day when we were getting beaten by 15, 20, 30 points. I think a group of individuals around the community, the club, they got together and they're really putting a big emphasis on driving the football in the school and the underage. That's paid dividends.

“We won the junior in 2017 and got to the All-Ireland final. We had a few years there in limbo but we've kicked on over the last couple of years and got to our first intermediate semi-final last year.

“It’s great to be part of that, and it feels like getting to be the Westmeath captain is as much a recognition of where Multyfarnham have come, as much as anything that I’ve done,” he added.