Westmeath's Joe Clarke could easily be playing for the London hurlers instead of against them this weekend.

The Lake County vice-captain trained with the Exiles for six months last year while based in the English capital, and was on the verge of joining them before managing to secure work back home.

"I trained with London from January to June last year and was very close to transferring to them," the quantity surveyor explained to the Westmeath Topic.

"Eamonn Phelan (the London manager) tried to get me to play for them, but I suppose the lure of playing for my own county was too strong and I was lucky enough to get a job back home with Mercury Engineering. But if that opportunity hadn't come up, the chances are I'd be playing for London against Westmeath on Saturday.

"There have been a lot of changes in personnel on the London panel since I trained with them. I think there are only seven or eight players still involved from last year. But they've brought in plenty of good players since then. Among them is John Walsh from Laois who I know very well from my college days."

London put it up to Carlow on their Leinster SHC debut last month, and Clarke - whose younger brother Aonghus is ruled out with a hand injury - is expecting nothing easy in Ruislip.

"We're under no illusions about the task awaiting us," the Castletown-Geoghegan clubman continued.

"Ruislip isn't an easy place to go to these days and get a win. They will see this game as a good draw, in the same way as we see it as a good draw. The winners will have a home game against either Waterford or Offaly, and that's a huge incentive. We wouldn't fear either of them - they're not as strong as they used to be - but we have to get over London first.

"I know from experience the effort and commitment of these London players. They do the same amount of training as any of the teams in Ireland do. Some of their players can spend up to two hours getting across the city for training." Tweet

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