Pat Flanagan admits he faces a huge task to lift his Offaly players after Saturday's Leinster SFC quarter-final replay loss to Westmeath.

The 11-point defeat was the heaviest the Faithful have suffered to their neighbours in almost a century and leaves them short of confidence ahead of next Sunday evening's All-Ireland qualifier against Cavan in Tullamore.

"The boys were on the floor in our dressing-room - there's no point in saying any different," a crestfallen Flanagan told the Irish Daily Mirror.

"Just to get the lads heads' up is going to be a big challenge. To a play a team that was in Division 1 this year is going to be a serious task. But that's what it is, a challenge, and maybe these boys will learn an awful lot from it.

"If they can learn from these Westmeath games and get themselves ready for next weekend, then that's a huge mental achievement in itself."

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