Brendan Hackett is committed to seeing out his three-year term as Westmeath manager, despite coming in for criticism from delegates at a recent county board meeting.

The Monaghan native's reign has so far been overshadowed by the defections of star forwards Dessie Dolan and Denis Glennon, but the pressure eased significantly on him last weekend when Westmeath defeated Meath in the Leinster under 21 championship and were unlucky to lose to the Royals in the National League. And Hackett received a further boost on Wednesday when veteran Martin Flanagan made a surprise return to training.

"My focus, and the management's focus, is on who were have," he said.

"In this world you concentrate on what you have, not what you haven't got. The team of 2004 is coming to its natural end. That happens in every county in the country. So it's a case of building and what you do is look at the under 21s, see what's coming, and keep a couple of solid seniors together.

"People like Damien Healy, Michael Ennis and Donal O'Donoghue; they're the kind of players who are leaders. We're here for three years, so it's not going to happen in the first six months. In terms of three years, am I where I hoped we'd be? Absolutely."

He added: "I said to people to be patient, that there's rebuilding going on and there'll be a bit of short-term pain while we put the team together." Tweet

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