Tomás Quinn: Westmeath evidently saw this one coming

Talk is cheap. It’s the actions that follow from teams that determine whether they really believe or whether they were trotting out a party line — and in some cases trying to convince themselves.

On a weekend of three provincial semi-finals, two went as expected and then we had one nail-biter for the ages where Westmeath finally broke their Meath hoodoo with an incredible second half performance at Croke Park.

It can sometimes be the lazy option to give all the praise to the winners while second guessing every move the losing teams made. Studying the three games, one of the recurring themes was the contrast in attitude and belief between some of the sides. Every team at every level talk about attitude and belief but how do you measure these things? Words like leadership, character, balls, clutch and coolness are often used to describe players and teams for their actions when games are there to be decided.