Paul Sharry insists that Westmeath won't be taking Carlow's challenge lightly in Sunday's Leinster SFC opener at Cusack Park.

The Lakemen are hot favourites to set up a glamour quarter-final date with Dublin in Croke Park on June 1 after a successful National League campaign that saw them clinch promotion to Division 1 for 2014, but centre back Sharry doesn't think league form will count for much at the weekend.

"They won't fear us in the slightest," the St. Loman's clubman told the Westmeath Topic.

"I know they had a poor league, but the championship is a completely different ball game. The tempo goes up by another 25 or 30 per cent. Carlow are well capable of lifting it for the championship as we saw in the last two years when they beat Louth (2011) and brought Meath to a replay (2012).

"In Anthony Rainbow, they have a young manager who has lots of fresh ideas. They'll be thinking exactly the same way as us; that this is a great opportunity to get to Croke Park. If we're any way complacent, we'll be beaten," he warns.

Westmeath and Carlow haven't met in the championship since 2003 when the Lake County prevailed by 1-17 to 1-12 at Cusack Park. And while this makes the Barrowsiders something of an unknown quantity, Sharry welcomes the fact that Westmeath are playing a team they aren't too familiar with.

"This is my fifth year playing senior for Westmeath and I can't remember ever coming up against Carlow in that time," he explains.

"It's nice to play a different team. Last year we played Louth twice in the championship and, having faced them a good few times over the previous couple of years, we were sick of playing them and they were probably sick of playing us!" Tweet

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