Division 3 league winners Westmeath had been scorching favourites to beat the Backyard County footballers in Portlaoise, however per week after seeing off Down of their league remaining in Croke Park, Dessie Dolan’s males suffered a shock 2-9 to 1-11 defeat.
It additionally signifies that Westmeath’s hopes of taking part in on this yr’s All-Eire championship have suffered a setback as Kildare will achieve that spot in the event that they beat Wicklow subsequent Sunday and observe up with victory over Louth or Wexford in a Leinster semi-final.
Wicklow, nevertheless, will fancy their possibilities of one other upset with jubilant supervisor Oisín McConville lavishing reward on his gamers’ dedication.
“Once you ask gamers what they need from their soccer profession, they need to have the ability to have a look at one another and say we gave completely every thing. And, in equity, they gave completely every thing right now,” mentioned McConville.
“It’s (candy). It has been a troublesome season and we discovered outcomes very laborious to return by, however I feel in the direction of the top of the league our performances improved, particularly within the final two video games.
“When you’re speaking about how I might describe this crew within the 18 months I’ve recognized them, it’s that they’ll go to the wall, they’ll undergo the wire, however we in all probability haven’t seen sufficient of that to be trustworthy. However we noticed it right now.”
The Wicklow supervisor thinks there’s a lot extra in his crew.
“I really assume there may be extra in us, tons extra,” he mentioned. “We had been lacking Mal (Malachy Stone, crimson card towards Antrim), Paddy (O’Keane) went off (injured), Tom Moran black automotive, that’s three of our mainstays of our defence all yr, so when issues had been going towards us we dug in. I assumed the bench gave us a serious dig out right now and once more that in all probability hasn’t occurred sufficient all yr.
“There are such a lot of issues to love about right now’s efficiency.
“Now, that should occur every single day, however right now is a begin, Immediately is a benchmark. We are able to’t go under that now. We all know what the subsequent activity at hand is. We’re overjoyed right now, however we wish to be overjoyed towards subsequent week.
“We performed Kildare final yr. We felt as if we competed okay towards them, however we had been crushed by 10 factors and we wish to change that now. This yr we wish to see it out till the top.
“And that was the massive factor about right now, we seen it out till the top,” he added.
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