A Leinster final between the All-Ireland champions and a division four league team hardly reflects well on the state of football in the province, although for James Dolan, the man who helped seal Westmeath’s place in that showdown against Dublin, it represents important progress nonetheless.

It’s the first time Westmeath have made back-to-back Leinster football finals in their championship history, and while their recent relegation to division four of the league was a setback, Dolan believes his team are better prepared to face Dublin compared to last year, when they lost the final by 13 points, 2-13 to 0-6.

“Last year was the first Leinster final for all these Westmeath players,” says Dolan. “So it was a big deal, the parade around Croke Park, all that. The occasion is huge. We were all kind of looking around and taking it all in.

“We don’t have that problem this year. I’m sure we’ll go in a lot more focused, and the occasion will be kind of taken out of it. But we’ll go up and enjoy it too, because they don’t come around very often.”

Formidable challenge

Dolan’s goal early in the second half of Sunday’s quarter-final against Kildare, part of their 1-6 without reply, proved crucial in Westmeath making that final: it finished 1-12 to 1-11, and Dolan doesn’t deny they’re facing a far more formidable challenge back in Croke Park on July 17th – with Dublin looking to win an 11th Leinster title in 12 years, and a sixth in succession.

“We feel we didn’t do so bad last year,” he says, and indeed Westmeath were still in the game at half time, 0-8 to 0-4, before second-half goals from Bernard Brogan and Jack McCaffrey ended the contest. “But we can’t wait. This is why you play football, to play in finals, and after the bad year we had so far we are delighted to be playing in another final.”

Still, part of the worry for Westmeath is that they’re taking on the reigning league and All-Ireland champions on the back of a third successive league relegation, which has now left them a division four team. Dolan, a cousin of 2004 Westmeath All Star Dessie Dolan, admits confidence was low after the league campaign, but that beating Kildare, they felt, was always within their range.

“We were confident. We had a long break, after the league, until the Offaly game, played a few challenge games, did reasonably well in. The first game in the championship is always going to be nip and tuck, we eked out a one-point win, from that we had to set our sights on Kildare.

“We kind of let them get a head start, no more than last year against Meath, when we were eight and nine points down. We were six points down and we had to turn it around again.

“Games ebb and flow like that the whole time. We were on top early and we didn’t kick on from there. Then they got the goal and I suppose the goal kind of woke us up again. We could just have easily have lost, and we won it again. So maybe those small little margins are starting to turn our way.”

Ultimate judge

With that they also beat Kildare for the first time since 1960, following last year’s first-ever championship win over Meath, although the ultimate judge of that progress will come against Dublin, and whether they can get closer than last year’s 13-point loss.

“We had a defensive shape, last year, but I don’t know if we are going to go the same away again. We are just trying to go one better. Dublin are unbelievable at the minute so we have to do something to counteract their strengths, and maybe seek out some weaknesses.”