Westmeath earned a third Allianz Hurling League Division 2A 1-19 to 1-18 victory on the spin when defeating Meath at Trim on Saturday afternoon.
Michael Ryan’s team maintained their push for promotion by defeating the Royals, with John Gilligan’s goal the key score. Ryan was satisfied that the midlanders preserved their unbeaten record.
“We are happy with the win because this is never an easy place to come,” Ryan remarked in an interview with Midlands Sport 103. “Meath are a good team, they are a much better team than people give them credit for. At half-time we were a couple of points down, we had some harsh words in the dressing room. There is no point in painting it any other way, we had a serious talk and we gave away a bad point at the start of the second half.
“Overall, though, I thought our response was very good. There are aspects of the game we weren’t happy with. We were five points up, but we didn’t close out the game very well. I thought the commitment in the second half was really good. We have three wins out of three, we play London next week, we can’t take them for granted either. If we win that we are possibly in the league final. Overall, reasonably happy, but we still have an awful lot of work to do.”
Next Sunday Westmeath face London at McGovern Park in Ruislip and Ryan wants his team to be more clinical.
“When you see the winning post in sight, when you have a chance to win the game, you have to close that out better,” he said. “Maybe our composure wasn’t as good as it needed to be because we had some wild shots.
“Overall nobody can question the commitment or heart of these fellas, the way they battled from start to finish. They have serious pride in the Westmeath jersey. We fully realise and are under no illusions that we have to improve an awful lot if we want to get out of this division. London have added a few fellas to their panel and we won’t take it for granted. It is in London, there is a lot of pride in those fellas playing over there. If we perform we know we can win the game, but we have to prepare properly, get to London, and get the job done.”
