GAA/National Football League: Seán Moran on how Westmeath are coping with premier status.

Westmeath arrive in Donnycarney this evening as Leinster champions. The Allianz NFL tie with Dublin isn't critical, but it's a new experience for the hosts - playing a Westmeath team that's packing serious silverware. In another way, though, it's all too familiar a feeling.

In the 10 years since last winning the All-Ireland, Dublin have seen five different counties pick up provincial honours. For most of the past 30 years no one apart from Meath had acquired the habit of slapping Dublin around Leinster. Now every ambitious team does it. It's become a rite of passage. Last summer was Westmeath's turn.

When Westmeath brought in Páidí Ó Sé as manager the intention was clear - that he should extend the county's under-age All-Ireland success to senior level.

"We're trying to win Leinster," said county secretary Paddy Collins, who was persuaded to join Ó Sé and Tomás Ó Flatharta as a selector, before the season started. "There's no major power in the province. Now there's a number of counties who feel they have a realistic chance. Westmeath would like to think they might be one of those counties."

A whirlwind O'Byrne Cup campaign brought out the crowds and the league started positively with a draw against Cork, but, slowly, the optimism drained under pressure of bad results.

A league that had begun with talk of winning Leinster fizzled out amid anxious whispers about the likelihood of beating Offaly in the first round.

"We went through a lot of pain in the league," says Ó Flatharta, "but at least we were able to spot identifiable weaknesses and to do something about them. Another thing about the league was that we didn't get one piece of luck. We had penalties and goal chances that didn't work out, but when the championship came that all changed.

"We were lucky to beat Offaly. At the end of the Dublin game Jayo was in for a goal and it went narrowly wide. Against Laois in the Leinster final Kevin Fitzpatrick was through, but the ball finished up wide."

Ó Flatharta, like Ó Sé, is from west Kerry, but works and lives in Dublin. He was largely unknown when he got the call to join the management team. Yet his influence has been widely acknowledged. If Ó Sé is about the big picture - big matches, big ambitions - his assistant commands the detail.

"They had a manager who had won eight All-Irelands and two more as a manager. Páidí knows Croke Park well. He can share that experience and players take it on board. It shows in their attention to training, rest and preparing for training sessions.

"We trained four times a week, between gym work and everything. They have to be in a position to train very hard. That's where diet control and rest are important as well as water or fluid intake on the day of training."

Beating neighbours Offaly for the first time in 55 years was a great breakthrough, but it was the Dublin match that would catapult Westmeath onto the big stage. As Ó Flatharta puts it: "Dublin were big hitters, one of those counties that are on the short list every year."

Maybe it was questionable how big Dublin were actually hitting last year. Morale was low and the season would end in disappointment and the departure of manager Tommy Lyons, a club mate of Ó Flatharta in Kilmacud Crokes. But on the day Dublin were a team that had won Leinster only two years previously and they began as if they would crush Westmeath.

"The start was very worrying," says Ó Flatharta. "Dublin were winning everything around the middle. Jayo and Alan Brogan were running everywhere, scoring and destroying our back line. We had to stay composed."

Crucial switches were made. John Keane, who would end the year as an All Star, went onto Brogan and the match turned. On the Westmeath line there was a realisation that they had survived the worst. "After the changes were made, about 10 minutes before half-time we started playing well. I was fairly confident going into the dressingroom."

That confidence was well placed. The win came together in the crucible of the final minutes, adding to Westmeath's sense of its value.

"Winning a championship game, junior, intermediate or whatever is always a great feeling for everyone," says Ó Flatharta. "I know it's not strictly knockout anymore but the win was a great occasion. Beating the Dubs is a big thing. I was absolutely delighted.

"But when you're in management you enjoy a feeling like that for about 15 minutes. Then you're back in the dressingroom and suddenly anxious in case anyone took a knock. You talk to physios and the medical team. Preparation starts immediately after the game."

The Leinster title followed in three matches. As other great memories of Croke Park were stored away, in some ways beating Dublin in the quarter-final faded a little. But not in others.

"For a Kerryman there's a great thing about beating Dublin. There's always been that rivalry and it will always be there."

As it is again tonight.