Outgoing selector Pat Flanagan has joined the race to become the next Westmeath football manager. The Offaly native has joined Dessie Dolan Snr in publicly expressing an interest in filling the vacancy left by Tomas O Flatharta. Flanagan boasts an impressive club management CV which includes two Westmeath SFC title successes with Tyrrellspass (2006 and 2007) and an Offaly SFC title with his native Clara (2003). He also led Tyrrellspass to a Leinster club final appearance in 2007. A six-man selection committee, which includes county chairman Tom Farrell and football board chairman Des Maguire, was recently set up by the county board to appoint a new manager, but they have so far denied making any approaches to potential candidates. Flanagan declared his interest in the post in an interview with today's Westmeath Independent: "The Westmeath manager's job is a position I'm definitely interested in. "I spent six or seven months working alongside Tomás and it was a very good experience. I think I know what's required to take it a step forward and a fair idea of what's needed in terms of players and so on. I feel my previous involvement with the set-up is an advantage. However, that's a decision for the selection committee to make. And at this moment in time there has been no approach made to me in relation to the Westmeath job." Flanagan has been spotted at plenty of Westmeath club championship matches in recent weeks and, while he acknowledges a need for fresh blood in the county set-up, he dismissed the notion that wholesale changes are required. "I feel Westmeath need to be very careful about this. They had a poor start to last year's campaign and suffered injuries to many seasoned players - and they never really recovered. But perhaps people are condemning players to the scrapheap a bit too soon. "It doesn't make these players bad players overnight and you must remember they pushed Tyrone mightily close during the previous campaign. I have read the papers linking my name with the job and read about the selection committee and all the rest, but as far as I'm concerned it's all just speculation at the moment because nobody has come to me to discuss the post," he added. Tweet

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