Tom Cribbin: ‘Once we clicked there was no stopping us’

Tom Cribbin admitted it was a little ‘miracle’ to emerge from the depths of despair grasping a Leinster final place, but the man who actually conjured it, Kieran Martin, could only shrug.

Once Westmeath ‘clicked’, Martin reasoned matter-of-factly, they were always likely to be difficult to stop. No high fives or hollers, just plain old sense from the man whose 2-3 haul was central to their recovery from a nine-point deficit with 19 minutes remaining.

“Once we clicked we knew there would be no stopping us,” said Martin. “It’s a great victory to get and to do it in the way we did makes it even better.

“We were down a good bit early on but we knew we just needed to get to half-time.

“But once we got in, settled down, we regrouped. Nobody said a thing. We just thought about the game ourselves as players. We knew that if we got a few points back at the start of the second-half, we could do it. We’re a second-half team in many ways so we knew we could push on.”

Martin admitted Westmeath were overawed by the occasion early on as Meath ran up a 10-point lead. But when things simmered down at half-time the memory of their strong second-half against Wexford in the quarter-finals was strong.

“We got 1-9 in 10 minutes against Wexford so that was fresh in the mind. We knew it was possible,” he said.

Martin’s move from defence to attack was central to the turnaround. He’d been played at centre-back but moved to the half-forwards and then to the edge of the square where he wreaked such damage.

“I like to be close to goal,” he said. “I don’t want to be running from the half-way line the whole time. But look, it’s a Westmeath victory and we’re in a Leinster final. It’s a lot bigger than any one player.”

Westmeath’s reward is a first Leinster final place since 2004 when they claimed their one and only title.

It’s some turnaround on last year when Westmeath failed to win a single league or Championship match under Paul Bealin.

“At the start of the year I saw something special in that group of lads,” explained Cribbin. “We knew they had fierce character and getting them to gel as a unit was the secret to making it happen.”