Cribbin takes blame for league failure
June 29, 2016
Westmeath county board chairman Sean Sheridan and manager Tom Cribbin celebrate after beating Offaly in the Leinster SFC quarter-final with football committee chairman Dermot Fox behind.
©INPHO/Tom Beary.
Westmeath manager Tom Cribbin has laid the blame for his charges most recent relegation in the league firmly at his own feet.
Cribbin's record as Westmeath manager is a strange one indeed as he has won five out of six Leinster championship matches, while only four wins out of 14 have come in the league.
The only provincial defeat to date is last year's loss to Dublin in the final, proving that the Midlanders are certainly more of a championship team than they are a league one.
"The league was probably my fault," Cribbin told the Westmeath Examiner. "Certain things went wrong. We had 12 players who didn't finish till the end of November and I made them rest until Christmas to clear up niggles and so on.
"We probably brought them on too early in the O'Byrne Cup. Kieran Martin, Paul Sharry and Ger Egan, a lot of these lads carried injuries through the league.
"We took a chance. We had to send Paul Sharry for an operation. He could have played the last few league matches. We thought we'd stay up without him but we needed him. It was a call. We wanted to be certain to have him for the championship, we couldn't afford to be without him."
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