Westmeath lay a 56-year bogey to rest

Westmeath 1-12 Kildare 1-11: Shot down in spring, but singing in summer. Such is the way of Westmeath under Tom Cribbin these last couple of seasons.

Dublin’s propellers await them again but the team Jim Gavin’s men will next face are anything but banal. Okay, their semi-final won’t live long in the memory. In fact, it was one of the worst games of the championship thus far but it saw the victors create history once more.

In last season’s corresponding fixture, they dismissed Meath in the most spectacular of circumstances beat them for the first time in championship. Yesterday’s win was a variation of that famous win, again displaying their best after the half-time to qualify for a provincial final and beating Kildare for the first time in SFC since 1960 in the process.