Ladies National Football League Division 3 final replay
May 16, 2012By Jackie Cahill
Westmeath boss Alan Mangan has described the prospect of promotion to Division 2 of the Bord Gáis Energy Ladies National Football League as "massive."
But to achieve that goal, the Lake County must get past the challenge of Leitrim in next Saturday's Division 3 final replay at Emmet Park, Killoe in county Longford (7.0).
The two sides played out an exciting draw in last Saturday's stalemate at Parnell Park and Mangan has revealed that Westmeath will be boosted by the return of Laura Brennan, who scored a penalty in last year's TG4 All-Ireland intermediate final.
Brennan missed out last weekend with ankle ligament damage but returned to training this week and is expected to be named among the substitutes, with a view to coming on against Leitrim.
Mangan said: "Promotion is massive for us in terms of setting down a marker. We have to be playing against senior teams to prepare us for the championship and we'll be going all out to win this. I'd like to think that if we're there next year, and hopefully we will be, that a season in Division 2 would see us giving the Leinster (senior) championship a good rattle."
As well as the massive promotion carrot on offer in Saturday's replay, the match also provides invaluable championship preparation for both sides.
Westmeath tackle Meath in the Leinster senior semi-final on July 1 while Leitrim have a Connacht semi-final against Sligo on June 24 to look forward to before the first round of the intermediate championship against Wicklow a week later.
Áine Tighe, scorer of eight points last weekend, missed a late free that would have claimed victory for Leitrim but manager Niall Kilrcann insisted: "Westmeath could have won it and we could have won it too.
"We had the free in the last minute of the game but if you look back on it, it wasn't a free at all. We were ahead with seven minutes to go and left them back into it. When you're ahead at that stage, you want to drive on but I'd be much happier with a replay obviously than to lose the game. We have another crack at it and it should be another exciting game.
"The only real shame is that both teams won't be going up into Division 2. I've made my feelings known on that and Division 2 will be poorer for it because both teams are capable of playing at that standard." Tweet
