I'll be honest I wasn't expecting a win today given we were travelling to a relegated team from Div2. However I left Mullingar thinking Westmeath got extremely lucky. The first 15 minutes of 1st half and 20 of the second Westmeath were second to everything. I thought we battled very well for kickout possession when it was kicked long and probably won the majority of breaks too. However it was the poor execution in front of the posts that let us down. We could easily have won that game by 4/5 points had we converted some of what were very very scorable attempts. I'd say our wide tally must have been 11/12 with nearly all of them within a 1/2 feet of the post. So essentially we kicked the win away. Nevertheless credit to getting back into it from 8 points down but no more than so many Sligo teams of recent years the killer instinct wasn't there to see it out. 1 point up with 40 seconds to go and end up losing it by 1.
There are positives Cummins did very well and great to have him back Lee Duignan too. Spillane is a big impact when he's on the field one wonders could he join sooner? However when Westmeath ran at us with serious pace they cut through us like a hot knife in butter and the two goals were from that. Fermanagh game is a big one as they lost surprisingly at home so we're both under pressure to get points on the board but there's snippets of today that give me hope we will do.

Sligoman1234 (Sligo) - Posts: 631 - 25/01/2026 18:37:29    2653140

We should have won, definitely deserved a draw but finished up with nothing and we have no one to blame only ourselves. We were turned over very cheaply, passed the ball to our opponents several times and missed handy frees. I dunno why Lee was taken off the frees . He nailed everything the week before and we missed a few handy ones today. We also missed a lot from play. A point up in injury time and we tried to play keep ball, lost it and they got the equalizer from it. We lost the kick out and they scored the winner.That messing about in injury time I would think came from the mgt who also tried to waste time bringing on a substitute with the clock deep in the red. Both of their goals came from running directly at us and exposing the lack of pace some of our defenders have. The positives were how we dominated the middle third for long periods. Our two league debutants did ok. They would never have played in a game of such intensity before. They should start again next week. Spillane added to the attack but I think we should have brought on the other subs earlier. Murphy wasn't fit. He seemed to struggle the whole game. We were bereft of ideas in the forward because quiet honestly our goal was a fluke. I have no doubt Alan was going for a point but it dropped short and Cian got his fist to it. At that crucial period we had 2 bad wides from frees.
We need to get our act together for next weekend and pick up 2 points

eoinog (Sligo) - Posts: 2319 - 25/01/2026 20:26:09    2653166

The better team lost today; this is coming from a Westmeath man! Your midfield absolutely destroyed us. Spillane surely has to start for yee the next day after his massive impact today. We lost basically every game last year with the last kick of the game so I know how it feels. Massive positives for Sligo and there will be lots of twists and turns over the following weeks. We will be in trouble unless we resolve our ongoing issues at midfield! Losing Wallace today also hurt us a lot.

Matthew (None) - Posts: 1109 - 25/01/2026 20:48:52    2653176

Excellent Sligo display, Westmeath dominated for 20-25 mins and made it count but Sligo showed great character, pressed our side brilliantly and definitely deserved at least a point

Claretandblue (Westmeath) - Posts: 2555 - 25/01/2026 21:17:03    2653189

That was a sickener today. Hopefully we can learn from the mistakes, and pick up 2 points against Fermanagh

Taypot (Sligo) - Posts: 232 - 25/01/2026 21:39:12    2653197