'Kieran lost a good friend last week' - Jack Cooney in awe of Martin's mental strength

Martin's Maryland clubmate Eoin Farrell, a Leinster minor medallist in 2000 and former Westmeath senior player, recently passed away.

Westmeath’s Kieran Martin celebrates after the game

Westmeath manager Jack Cooney heaped praise on Tailteann Cup final hero Kieran Martin for setting aside his grief to inspire the county's landmark win.

Cooney sprung experienced forward Martin from the bench on the hour mark at Croke Park and he required just seven minutes to produce the game breaking moment, a brilliant solo goal.

The scores were tied when powerful Martin cut through the centre of Cavan's defence and planted the ball in the net, part of a 1-4 scoring burst that the Lake County conjured during their come from behind win.

It was mightily impressive from Martin in particular as his Maryland clubmate Eoin Farrell, a Leinster minor medallist in 2000 and former Westmeath senior player, recently passed away.

"We've been delivering the message since the day we came in that everything is judged on the training ground," said Cooney of Martin's involvement. "Kieran has trained phenomenally well over the last number of weeks. Kieran lost a good friend last week in Maryland, 'Eoinie' Farrell. We spoke about that during the week, as we did with (the passing of) Enda Mulvihill the previous week. They're not forgotten.

"I think things like that tighten a group and we went out and trained for Kieran that night. He was phenomenal in training that night and you could see he brought that spirit with him onto the pitch today."

Westmeath will take their place in the history books as the first ever winners of the Tailteann Cup. Their reward is an anticipated €60,000 grant towards a team holiday later in the year while they'll be exempt from next year's Tailteann Cup, regardless of how they fare in the National League.

"It's been a great experience," said Cooney of the competition. "This is our sixth championship game this year, our fourth in this tournament. We've had eight weeks of training with the lads since our runout against Kildare in the Leinster semi-final. Today caps it off but I think we've moreso grown as a group and as a team in the last eight weeks. That's what the Tailteann Cup has afforded us to do. Hopefully now we can sit back and assess and see can we push on and be better now from this."