Westmeath boss Jack Cooney has played down suggestions that his side are favourites for the Tailteann cup.
Westmeath face Offaly in Sunday’s semi-final in Croke Park, with many tipping Cooney’s team and Cavan for the final.
Cooney however played down suggestions his side are up for the cup and was focusing on the benefits.
“The big benefit for us is you get to spend time with the group training” Cooney declared.
“Now we’re training in lovely conditions, pitches are immaculate and we great support from the Westmeath the clubs. That is a huge spin off from this” added Cooney.
“Now we’ve got two wins back-to-back and that creates its own positivity added the Westmeath boss. “It would be great to bring that forward into either the Tailteann Cup or Sam Maguire going forward”.
Cooney’s side are set for their fifth championship outing of the summer this weekend. An easy victory over Longford in the Leinster quarter-final was followed semi-final defeat to Kildare.
The team bounced back however with a three point win over Laois and a five point quarter-final win over Carlow in the Tailteann Cup.
“We targeted Croke Park” declared Cooney. “We set our stall out early, we committed to it and we targeted to getting back to Croke Park”.
“Believe it or not when we played Kildare in the Leinster semi-final we had a number of players who hadn’t played in Croke Park” added Cooney.
Westmeath face Offaly in their semi-final. Offaly are facing their fifth championship game of the summer. John Maughan’s side lost out to Wexford in the Leinster championship.
Offaly then avenged the defeat by beating Wexford in the Tailteann cup preliminary round and followed it up with wins over Wicklow and New York.
The winners of the two semi-finals will return to Croke Park for the final on July ninth.
