Gaelic Games O'Byrne Cup, first round Mullingar hails the messiah

Gavin Cummiskey

at Cusack Park

And so it begins. The competitive reign of Páidí Ó Sé as Westmeath football manager got off to a winning start in the most dramatic fashion at Cusack Park yesterday. With seven minutes of injury-time on the clock, and the game seemingly beyond them, Joe Fallon held his nerve to force the contest to extra-time.

Although showing understandably patchy form, once Westmeath got Louth into extra-time there was only going to be one winner as Fallon, a late call-up for the flu-stricken Dessie Dolan, added another four points to go with a James Conroy goal.

However, the pressure is already beginning to mount on both the players and their new coach.

"I felt under a bit of pressure today to be honest," said Ó Sé afterwards. "I was just hoping we could maybe get them past the post for the first day out. It makes the training ground much easier on Tuesday night."

The match was also marked a competitive debut for new Louth manager Val Andrews.

"You can't beat going for honest, hard-working players who are proud to be playing for their county," he said. "It's basically a rebuilding process, It's hard to set realistic objections until we go a bit further. Our first real test is Antrim in the league."

Westmeathstarted the better but Cormac Malone blasted a penalty to the back of the net after a trip by Fergal Murray on Mark McGeown, to leave it 1-2 to 0-4 at the interval.

It was Conroy's accuracy that brought Westmeath back into the contest as his four successive points made it 0-8 to 1-3 midway through the second half.

Louth full-forward Ollie McDonnell also found his range from frees and scores from David Devenney, Alan McCarthy and McGeown looked set to spoil Ó Sé's day, until Fallon intervened.

Two minutes after the re-start Conroy found himself clean through on goal, after he dispossessed Simon Gerard, and he made no mistake with the finish.

When David Brennan was dismissed by referee David Coldrick, for a second yellow card, Louth were left with much work to do.

Ó Sé was quick to dismiss talk of his Kerry past: "As you can see, I have the Westmeath manager's shirt on me now, that's who I am for the moment - for two years - and you can be very sure whoever I am playing, even if it's Real Madrid, I'll be trying to beat them with Westmeath."

WESTMEATH: A Lennon; J Davitt, D Mitchell, F Murray; T Stuart-Trainor, A Canning, D Heavin (0-2); R O'Connell, D O'Shaughnessy; F Wilson (0-3, 2 frees), G Dolan (0-1, 45), M Ennis; JP Casey, J Conroy (1-5, 4 frees), D Glennon. Subs: F Dardis for O'Connell (26-29 mins), PJ Ward for Casey (26 mins), D Gavin for Mitchell (half-time), P Conway for Ward (60 mins), J Fallon (0-5, 3 frees), for Dolan, 66 mins), F Dardis for Ennis (85 mins), Casey for Glennon (89 mins).

LOUTH: S McCoy; D Shevlin, J Kermath, S Gerard; P McGinnity, A Rogan, E Hughes; D Devenney (0-2), G Carr; A McCarthy (0-2), D Brennan, C McGuinness; M McGeown (0-1), O McDonnell (0-6, 5 frees), C Malone (1-1, pen). Subs: P Matthews for McGuinness (35 mins), P Mallon for Carr (40 mins), A Page for Shevlin (50 mins), P McGuigan for Kermath (70), A Hoey for McGeown, McGuinness for McGinnity (80).

Referee: D Coldrick (Meath).