Having achieved his first goal for 2009 by keeping his team in Division 2 of the National League, new Westmeath hurling manager Eamonn Gallagher now has his sights firmly set on winning the Christy Ring Cup and restoring the Lake County to hurling's top tier. After two years as a Westmeath football selector, Eamonn Gallagher was unveiled as the county's new hurling manager last winter. As a former county hurling star and the brains behind Raharney's senior championship triumphs in 2006 and last year, the St. Brigid's clubman was an obvious choice for the post, and is relishing the task of building on the progress made by his predecessors Johnny Dooley and Seamus Qualter over the past five years. "I always considered it an honour to play for my county and I feel the same way about managing my county," he says. "I could have stayed on as a county football selector, but when the hurling vacancy arose, I felt the time was right to go for it and I was delighted to get the job. I learned an awful lot from working with Tomas O Flatharta and the rest of the football management, and hopefully I'll be able to put some of that knowledge to good use in my new role. It's a big challenge, but I'm looking forward to it." Growing up in Dalystown, which is situated on the main Mullingar-Kilbeggan road, Eamonn's first love was hurling, and he was one of four brothers to represent the local St. Brigid's club with distinction. Like his older brother Ollie, who was a star goalkeeper for club and county throughout the 1970s, Eamonn began his hurling career between the posts before moving outfield at the age of 16. He played most of his hurling as a half forward or corner forward and represented his county at senior level from 1981 to '93. Gallagher won All-Ireland 'B' championship medals in 1984 and '91 and was part of the Westmeath team that achieved promotion to Division 1 of the National League in 1986 and was unlucky to lose to Kilkenny in the quarter-final of the same competition. During the same period, Westmeath regularly beat the likes of Tipperary, Galway and Offaly, but decline set in following the departure of a number of key players to the US and the Lake County has struggled to reach the same heights since then. Eamonn also won an intermediate football championship medal with Tyrrellspass in 1991 and was in goal when they lost the senior decider to Mullingar Shamrocks three years later. He began his management career with St. Brigid's and has since had spells in charge of St. Joseph's, Turin, Brownstown, Killucan and Raharney. In 2005, he led Killucan to an intermediate championship triumph and the following year they took the senior championship by storm when they reached the semi-final, only to lose narrowly to eventual champions Tyrrellspass. Also in 2006, he guided Raharney to their first senior hurling success in 12 years and, after taking a break in 2007, repeated the trick last year when the Deelsiders scored a shock win over reigning All-Ireland club intermediate champions Clonkill. Gallagher, whose selectors are Noel Geraghty (Castletown-Geoghegan), Sean Loughlin (Clonkill) and Nicky Weir (Raharney), has made a satisfactory start to his reign as Westmeath hurling boss. They began the year by defeating Wicklow, DCU and Carlow to claim the Kehoe Cup and have since consolidated their position in the restructured Division 2 of the National League, which had been one of Gallagher's main objectives at the outset of 2009. Despite producing highly creditable displays against Offaly, Wexford and Antrim, though, the threat of relegation had hung over Westmeath up until they secured their first win of the campaign against Kerry in the penultimate round. "We should never have found ourselves in that position," the manager insists. "We had only a point on the board going into the Kerry game, and that wasn't a true reflection of our performances. I thought we played very well against the top teams in the division - Offaly, Wexford and Antrim - and were unfortunate not to beat both Wexford and Antrim. But on the flip side, we were guilty of taking our eye off the ball against the lesser teams like Down and Carlow. "Outside of the Down and Carlow games, I have been very happy with our performances. This year's league was a new experience for us in that we were playing better quality opposition than we have been in the past couple of years. It was very important to us from a team development point of view." He continues: "I'd be a bit disappointed at the fact that not all of the best hurlers in the county have made themselves available to us. At the end of the day, we're a small county and can't afford to be without anyone. "But we have to work with what we have and in fairness to the players, the commitment they have shown has been excellent. They have applied themselves very well which might not have always been the case with Westmeath hurlers in the past." Among the positives Eamonn has taken from the league campaign have been the return of Killian Cosgrave after a two-and-a-half-year injury lay-off, the emergence of young players such as Ciaran Curley, Luke Folan and Darren Kilcoyne, and former centre back Darren McCormack's successful conversion into a full forward. "The decision to move Darren to the full forward line has worked well for us. He has given us a bit more punch up front. Darren is a great leader and is playing as well as he ever did," he says. With Division 2 status assured for another season, Gallagher says the next target for his team is to regain the Christy Ring Cup after last year's surprise final loss to Carlow. "We want to win the Ring Cup and win the promotion/relegation play-off after that because that's the only way we can be sure of playing in the Leinster championship next year. I think we should at least be given the chance to play in Leinster, especially when we've already proven that we can compete against the likes of Antrim. "They've brought the start of the Ring Cup forward this year which means we only have a two-week break after our final league game against Laois. I think that's a good thing because it keeps the momentum going. My ultimate ambition for this team is to have them competing and holding their own in the McCarthy Cup." For that to happen, however, Gallagher accepts that his players must learn how to "think faster". He concludes by saying: "While our fitness levels have definitely improved under Padraig Lynn, hurling is as much mental as physical. To compete at McCarthy Cup level, you have to think and react faster, and that's what we're striving to do, trying to play a quicker brand of hurling." Tweet

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