Westmeath hurling has been involved in a number of 'shocks' at inter-county level in the last 12 months, but their wins have been somewhat marred by the 'inquests' held by their losing opponents. By Stephen Reilly.

Last night, a sparse crowd in Cusack Park, Mullingar witnessed an historic occasion as a passionate and determined Westmeath side outplayed and for the large part outclassed Kilkenny in the Leinster under-21 hurling championship quarterfinal.

The Cats, as expected went into this game as red hot favourites to advance to the semi-final where they would meet either Dublin or Wexford.

The Lake County youngsters were obviously not shown the script on the night as from when midfielder and goalscorer Warren Casserly won the ball from the throw in and launched their first attack, it was plain to see that the home side were up for this match.

Kilkenny had their chances to win the game, including a 75^th minute penalty that substitute Andrew Gaffney blasted wide.

There was a massive sigh of relief when it was realised that Gaffney's shot had indeed gone the 'wrong' side of the post and the final whistle went from the resultant puck out.

Social media was alight with congratulations for Westmeath, but as always there was the usual 'inquest' into Kilkenny and how they could lose to the Midlanders.

Straight away questions were being asked about 'how many seniors Kilkenny had in their team?. 'They must have taken Westmeath for granted.'

Two things must be pointed out straight away, nine of the Kilkenny team that won the All-Ireland MHC started against Westmeath last night, while another three who started in the win over Limerick in 2014 came on.

Secondly, Kilkenny never take anyone for granted that is instilled into them from a young age and is one of the reasons the county have been so successful over the years.

Last year, Westmeath defeated Wexford in the provincial MHC and the Model County went into mourning, all the media focused on the demise of Wexford hurling.

Within Wexford itself, there was a committee established to find out how such a 'travesty' could occur and what they could do to avoid such an embarrassment in the future.

Roll on less than a year and Westmeath found themselves in a similar situation again as they defeated Offaly in the Leinster SHC round robin series.

The Offaly County Board were forced to apologise for not having published a hurling committee's review of the game in the county as if this was the reason for the defeat.

Their manager Eamonn Kelly was subjected to vile abuse on social media by faceless cowards who couldn't understand how they lost to Westmeath.

Snobbery is alive and well in hurling, there is no doubt about that. There is no question that each and every player that lost to Westmeath in those games mentioned were gracious in defeat as were their management teams, but within these counties and indeed on a national scale, there is no way the Midlanders should be recording these results.

But, everything Westmeath have achieved, they have deserved. These results are not just the result of one-off flukes, but they are the culmination of a number of years hard work from the establishment of development squads to proper coaching structures, their hard work is beginning to pay off.

Dublin have done it and made the breakthrough to the top tier, Westmeath are trying to do so on a much smaller budget.

They face Galway on Sunday week and they go into that match full of confidence. The odds will be stacked against them once again, but even if they do pull off a major shock, the question is will they get the credit they deserve?

Tweet

Most Read Stories