Tom Ryan recalls Páidí Ó Sé effect on Westmeath
Hurling, of course, didn’t feature in the programme and if Ryan is completely honest, his own two-season stint in charge of Westmeath, which corresponded with Ó Sé’s memorable time there in 2004 and 2005, existed largely in the shadow of the Kingdom icon too.
“Sure they went football mad, they hardly knew the shape of a hurley for two years,” recalled Ryan. “It was brilliant for them and for the county but hurling wasn’t top of the agenda. It was the ugly cousin.”
The timing of the documentary couldn’t have been more fitting as just last weekend, Westmeath qualified for their first Leinster final since Ó Sé guided them there in 2004.
“When the football was going full tilt under Páidí, any decent hurlers I had were always half-thinking they could be playing football,” recalled Ryan. “It was very difficult and I’d say, hand on heart, I failed to convince many of them. Now I can be fairly persuasive and I’m pretty good normally at bringing people on board, but I suppose I was pulling against a powerful force in Páidí. I failed miserably. I could see I was failing, there was always one eye on football. We had reasonable success with a small pool of players, but it was a difficult situation because in a county trying to make progress, you need everybody focused and weighing in.
“I would have had four or five fellas who were reasonable footballers and they’d play the two codes. When the football really took off under Páidí, it distracted them from the hurling.”
Like Páidí, Ryan came to Westmeath with a rich tradition, having guided Limerick to All-Ireland finals in 1994 and 1996. The Ballybrown man admitted he never forged any sort of relationship with Ó Sé, though he constantly sensed the lure of the Kerry man’s character.
“He was a God there actually and you could see the result of his endeavours because they won the Leinster championship and the place went bananas.”
A little over a decade on, Westmeath hurling is in roughly the same position.
They remain ambitious and crave progression in the game but, at the moment, emerging from the Leinster championship’s qualifier series for weaker teams appears to represent their glass ceiling.
Despite a late surge, they were comfortably beaten by Wexford in the provincial quarter-finals and the bookies spread of 15 points tomorrow against Limerick is probably about right.
Ryan has his own take on why they struggle. “I remember going to the clubs and I found them to be more interested in playing one another and the tribalism of that than what was happening at county level,” said Ryan.
“I couldn’t budge them out of that way of thinking. The other thing is they have some tremendous hurling people, with such passion for the game. I’d have died for those people to get some success but the tide was always running against them.”
Ryan still keeps in touch with former colleagues in the Lake County but doesn’t give them much hope of a fairytale win to match — or perhaps even outdo — what the footballers did at Croke Park last weekend however.
“I’d say myself that Limerick are due to react to their own performance against Tipperary with something strong. If Limerick produce the form that they did in the first 15 minutes of the second half against Tipp, they’ll be convincing winners. But if they’re any way sluggish again, Westmeath will get stuck into them. There’s a lot at stake for Limerick because the Tipperary defeat wasn’t so much a loss as a surrender.
“It’s been quiet in the county since, hardly a word about playing Westmeath when the place was buzzing before the Tipp game. So the mood has dipped a bit.”
Ryan was asked recently about the difference between managing Limerick now and when he was charge in the 1990s. “There was no back door draw the following morning for me,” he replied.
Limerick do at least have an opportunity to atone now, though Ryan shrugged when asked if they will seize it. “Well, they’re not showing us anything, they’ve had a hopeless season so far. They’ve got away with a bit of a bluffing. Promotion didn’t happen in the league, they beat Clare and then it was ‘We’re only interested in June 21 and Tipp’ but didn’t deliver. So there’s been a bit of covering up and excuses. I’d never question the quality of the team but I’d like to see them find some spark.”
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