AGONISING defeats still don’t produce results and only register as footnotes every season, but the performances of the Westmeath minor hurlers in 2011 still harshly escaped the appreciation of the wider hurling public.
With six minutes remaining, Westmeath were level with Kilkenny. Kilkenny held out to win by two points while Westmeath had to settle for a standing ovation from their fans.
The performance wasn’t unexpected because Westmeath beat Offaly before narrowly losing to a Dublin side which reached an All-Ireland final.
Still, even if Westmeath had made a Leinster final, the reaction would probably have only merited a snobbish shrug of the shoulders. One big result, one excellent team, still wouldn’t change over a century of tradition.
The reflex would be to point towards Carlow. They beat Wexford, Offaly and Laois in 2006 to reach their first Leinster minor final but Kilkenny hammered them by 26 points.
Eight years on, players from that squad should be well settled on a Carlow senior team whose fortunes are deemed no better off now than they were back then when they reached a Christy Ring Cup final for the first time.
Reaching that final, though, was a massive breakthrough for Carlow hurling and they subsequently went on to win successive Christy Ring titles in 2008 and 2009 before entering the Liam MacCarthy race in Leinster. They finally looked to be making real progress at the top level last year when running Wexford to two points in the qualifiers in Wexford Park.
After Westmeath won their third Christy Ring Cup in six seasons in 2010, they re-entered the Leinster championship with a hardened and experienced squad. Brian Hanley took over in 2011 and tried to take Westmeath to the next level.
The squad trained harder than ever and he infused the panel with youth. In their 2012 Leinster quarter-final, they frightened the daylights out of a Galway side which reached an All-Ireland final. Westmeath even finished the match with three minors.
The difficulty in counties like Westmeath and Carlow, though, is sustaining that progress and building on that momentum. After a poor championship last year, the wheels came off further at the outset of this season. Back in March, Westmeath player John Shaw addressed county board delegates and told them bluntly that Hanley did not have the backing of his squad or the hurling people in the county.
Hanley retained the support of the county board but the pain continued. With just one win from five, Westmeath finished second from bottom in Division 2A of the league. With three rounds of the Leinster Round Robin championship already played, their season is already effectively over.
So is Carlow’s, who lost to Antrim at the weekend, and who meet Westmeath now on Sunday. The round-robin system was created this year to facilitate counties like Carlow and Westmeath but there will always be obstacles and setbacks.
Apart from numbers and playing resources, being stranded in Division 2A places them both outside the top 12 and devoid of the chance to test themselves against the top counties.
In his address to Congress in February, GAA President Liam O’Neill revealed how Carlow and Westmeath, along with Laois and Antrim will be benefiting from a five-year funding package of €900,000. Yet when it’s broken down, the figure for each of the four counties is €45,000 per year, which amounts to the salary and expenses of one full-time games development officer.
And since the money is to be used for progressing the chances of the senior county team rather than underage coaching, how much can really be achieved when the real need is for more coaches, more underage development and greater number of people working on the ground in schools and clubs?
Carlow hurling showed what could be achieved this season with the outstanding progress of Mount Leinster Rangers reaching an All-Ireland club final. Their senior team are making as much progress as they can.
It could be argued that Westmeath are also changing their culture. They ran Laois to six points two weeks ago. On the Friday night before that game, Hanley had eight minors on the field for a 15-a-side game.
“When I blew the whistle afterwards,” said Hanley, “I said, ‘Some day in this county, when the belief is there, Westmeath will make massive strides’.”
That is always the hope and ambition but for counties outside the top 12, taking that next step is always going to be a massive leap.
