Fortune remains positive after hurlers lose to Dubs

Westmeath senior hurling boss Joe Fortune said he remains proud of his players after they concluded their Division 1B league campaign with a defeat against Dublin on Saturday. Fortune praised the attitude within the group afterwards when reflecting on the overall campaign.

“I think the performance against Limerick (was excellent), and to back it up the following week with a performance against Tipperary. I think that the young players coming in, Conor Gaffney, David Williams, David O’Reilly, Peter Clarke – today like when everybody kind of put the head down, he kept going in the middle of the field. That’s a huge positive for me.

“I think the attitude in the group is a positive,” he said.

“The easiest thing for the lads to do, a core group of those players who you follow so much, would have been to give up.

“We had a great day last year against Wexford, didn’t follow it up the following week against Antrim.

“And the easiest thing to do was for some of the lads to kind of step away and say, look we’ve had enough now, but they’ve come back together. They’re great to work with. There are no egos in that dressing room.

“I think they need a rest now. The inter-county season at the moment is so condensed. You hear people talking all the time.

“We’ve been lucky enough; we’ve tempered it right to the point where we have got lads back for the right time for the last two games on the basis that they’ve been doing a lot of strength and conditioning work.

“But we didn’t rush them in and we kind of got blooded a lot of young lads.

“So the next four weeks (is about the championship) – look like what I said to them inside, competition one is over now.

“They’re in division one next year again.”