Lake boss Flanagan taking it one game at a time

PAT FLANAGAN may only be Westmeath manager on a caretaker basis, but he does not view the championship as an audition for the job for a prolonged period, refusing to look beyond Sunday’s clash with Wicklow.

The circumstances of his appointment were far from ideal, with Brendan Hackett resigning after the players turned on him.

But far from looking at it as an opportunity to finally become an inter-county manager, Flanagan is taking things one step at the time.

“I’ve been asked this question before, would I like to get into inter-county management, and of course I would,” says Flanagan, who was a selector with Westmeath under Tomás O Flatharta and is combining his current responsibilities with the role as boss of Offaly club Clara.

“I try to strive to be the best I can and if you wanna be the best you can, you have to perform at this level. But when I was asked to do this job I said I’d do it and my whole focus is on the one game because I can’t look any further, irrespective of what might be or what may not be.

“I’ve to get a team ready in what I consider to be the best shape for the game. If it comes that Westmeath want me after that, then so be it. If not, we’ll have done our best in the interim to ensure that they’re gonna perform at their best.”

The lack of an ultimate goal stretches to the team as well.

“The bottom line is, when I was asked to take over, my one intention was looking no further than June 6. We have to build a team to represent Westmeath on the day and hopefully it will be successful and we can look at things after that. But we just want to take things step by step.”

Flanagan’s accession brought about the immediate return to the panel of Denis Glennon, who had absented himself during the league. Dessie Dolan, who had also made himself unavailable, came back a few weeks later.

So while the mood in the camp might not have been terribly positive upon Flanagan’s arrival, matters have improved and he is backing the players to be ready for the Wicklow challenge.

“I suppose after losing their games in the league the spirits were down to a certain degree. I know a lot of the players having been involved with Tyrrellspass and being involved last year with Westmeath and I know that they’re quite capable of getting themselves out of that very quickly.

“They’re a good group of guys who would work very hard. That would never be a problem for them, to work really hard to achieve. Over the last few weeks they’ve shown that. Their efforts in training have been tremendous. Hopefully it’s going to get up to the level that’s required.”

The club championship didn’t immediately help his efforts to put his stamp on things but he has got a clear run for the last three weeks or so and a challenge match success over Clare in which Glennon scored seven points, set a positive tone.

So while he is confident in the players’ ability to ready themselves, he also argues that they have a responsibility to do so and scoffs at the notion that they have a readymade excuse if it doesn’t work out for them.

“What happened with Brendan (Hackett), it was a pity the way things worked out. Every manager has an idea on how he’s going to run things. My ideas wouldn’t be the same as Brendan’s, but from that respect, the players have a job to do and that’s to get ready for (Wicklow).

“That’s what our job is and it’s up to the players and ourselves to ensure that they perform to their best ability.”