Westmeath's preparations for Saturday week's All-Ireland first round qualifier against Cavan have been hit by the loss of half a dozen players.

Alan Giles, who featured regularly in attack this year, is facing up to a year on the sidelines after suffering cruciate knee ligament damage while playing for his club Coralstown/Kinnegad.

Killian Daly (Mullingar Shamrocks), David McCormack (Rosemount), David Lynch (St. Malachy's) and John Egan (Athlone) have either departed or are about to depart for the US for the summer, while St. Loman's Shane Flynn has dropped himself off the panel.

Daly, Lynch and McCormack were all members of this year's U21 team which lost to Longford after a replay. Of the five, only McCormack saw action against Louth in last month's Leinster SFC first round defeat at Cusack Park, having coming on as a substitute at midfield just before half-time.

Even if McCormack had stayed at home for the summer, he would still have missed next weekend's game after suffering a broken nose in a SF challenge against Armagh at Cusack Park a few weeks ago. Tweet

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