'I've huge belief in all those guys' - Pat Flanagan

Pat Flanagan's belief in his players was vindicated last Sunday as Westmeath overcame pre-match favourites Wicklow by the narrowest of margins to book a place in the Leinster semi-finals.Flanagan was only appointed as Westmeath manager on an interim basis on April 21, after player unrest forced the resignation of Brendan Hackett, so he had just over six weeks to prepare for last Sunday's game. But he said he never doubted the players were capable of a winning performance on Sunday."There is a very thin line between teams being successful and going on a slide. I've said all along I've huge belief in all those guys. I saw them last year where there were games they could have won. They were always going to put on a performance today. They had to. After what happened, they were going to stand up," said a delighted Flanagan afterwards."There's an awful lot of proud guys in there. All they needed was the belief and the sense of victory to take them that extra step to get that extra point."People would have wrote this team off many weeks ago or months ago. Good players don't go away. They stood up to be counted today and it's a credit to them."When we met first, we said 'it's starting now, we're preparing for championship'. Had the previous manager stayed in the position, he probably would have been only getting up to championship level five or six weeks ago anyway. We just concentrated on what we could do over that period of time and tried to do it well," said Flanagan, who served as a selector with Westmeath last year.Westmeath had endured some nervous moments in the closing stages and when Wicklow eventually struck for the equalising goal, he looked like that had the momentum to kick on for victory - especially as Westmeath had been reduced to 13 men after the dismissals of John Gaffey and David Duffy."Well obviously it (the Wicklow goal) had been coming and there is no point in saying it hadn't been. The second sending off was difficult to deal with and that gave them (Wicklow), the momentum to go forward and obviously they had to pile in for the goal and we were probably getting that little bit tired at the time and we were going backwards too quickly. Having said that Gary Connaughton was superb in the goal to keep it out for as long as he did," said Flanagan.In the view of many observers, Conor Lynam was the man-of-the-match, as he augmented his three points from play with plenty of hard work and endeavour. Flanagan was very pleased with Lynam's display."For a young man it was brilliant to see and again it highlights that there are players coming in Westmeath, so hopefully we can go to the next stage and do ourselves justice again," he said.Westmeath's opponents in the Leinster semi-final are Louth, who were surprising but very impressive winners over Kildare last Saturday evening. As for the challenge of taking on Louth, Flanagan said: "When I took on this post about five weeks ago, I decided June 6 was the be all and end all of everything. I watched the match obviously last night (Louth v Kildare), and Louth looked a very good side but, having said that, all I could do is to concentrate on today and to get today out of the way and we will sit down and work for three weeks' time."Despite being listed at left corner-forward, Denis Glennon was deployed in a deeper role last Sunday. Although he still managed to score the late winning point, he operated as almost a third midfielder for much of the game. Asked about the thinking behind this tactic, Flanagan said: "We had to ensure that we kept a solid base early on. The one thing we didn't want to do was to let Wicklow get ahead of us, to get four or five scores on the board and put us under pressure. Then maybe the doubts would have come back in over the league campaign. So having him back there and playing deep, he come out with a sight of ball in the first half.""We could have done with him up at the far side as well because there was a big gap between our midfield and our forward line but we were quite happy to do what we were doing, just to stay in it until half-time, consolidate what we had then move on after that. "Lady Luck shuns WicklowWhen Mick O'Dwyer emerged from the Wicklow dressing room, he tried to put a brave face on the disappointment of missing out on a place in the Leinster semi-finals."I suppose momentum was on our side when we got the goal, but when you hit the upright and the crossbar a couple of times, well I suppose that's Lady Luck out the door when you don't take those chances," said the wily Kerryman."There was nothing much in it but the one thing I liked about our team was the fighting qualities that they showed, they kept at it when we were in dire trouble. Best of luck to Westmeath, they'll have a good game with Louth now, so it will be interesting.Similar to his views after the opening round win over Carlow, O'Dwyer felt many of the yellow cards issued last Sunday were unwarranted."It was a titanic tussle in the finish and there were some good contests there. I don't know about all these yellows. In my day there wouldn't have been any yellows or reds put up there today and we'd have plenty of physical stuff. It was a good game of football, people enjoyed it and a great crowd there as well."Micko said he was not surprised by how well Westmeath played, even though they lost all seven of their games in the National League."I wasn't a bit surprised. Don't talk about the league at all. The league is irrelevant when it comes to championship football. They have a lot of experienced players on that team - men who won an Under 21 All-Ireland and a Leinster title as well, so they had a good blend of youth and old warriors there," he said.