Tom Cribbin wants to continue as Westmeath football manager in 2016.

The Clane man made no attempt to hide his disappointment after the Lake County's championship campaign ended with a nine-point defeat to Fermanagh on Saturday, but his first season in charge will still be classed as a success, with the historic Leinster SFC semi-final victory over Meath the obvious highlight.

Cribbin wasn't offering any excuses after the game in Kingspan Breffni Park, saying: "I can't put my finger on it at the moment, it was a very disappointing second half from our point of view.

"When you saw their midfielder Donnelly going off I thought we should be getting to grips, but they drove on from that. They'd a couple of black cards early on, lost a couple of key players, but they seemed to grow in confidence from that.

"There was a nervous energy involved, perhaps due to the prize available to be collected (an All-Ireland quarter-final), it was a major, major thing for us. I know it was big for Fermanagh too, but when you get on a bit of a roll, and they got the roll at the right time, just before half-time, and they continued that."

Cribbin also refused to use Westmeath's heavy Leinster final defeat by Dublin as an excuse for their abject second half display.

"We were 0-5 to 0-2 up in the first half and playing well, and things seemed to be going right for us. We sat back a bit then and next thing it was 0-5 all, and it was still 0-5 all at half-time.

"So you can't blame the Leinster final or anything else. We just didn't play in the second half."

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