O'BYRNE CUP:HE'S OFFICIALLY four months in the job, he has his first competitive fixture this weekend, and Westmeath manager Brendan Hackett has yet to stage a single training session on the football field.

This is not some revolutionary approach to the game; rather, a combination of the close-season training ban and the big freeze, which has made his reintroduction to management “extremely difficult and frustrating”.

It wouldn’t be so bad if he’d a year or two recently behind him, but Hackett’s management experience, initially with Longford, then with Offaly, concluded back in 1992 – after which he shifted his attention to athletics.

Westmeath are set to host DCU in Sunday’s opening round of the O’Byrne Cup, postponed from last weekend due to the weather, and clearly Hackett would have preferred more preparation work, particularly given his long absence from management.

“We had a trial game at the end of October, and we managed one further trial game the week before Christmas, to finalise a panel,” says Hackett. “And that’s been it. The only thing we managed since was one training session in a sports hall, which wasn’t very satisfactory, and something we wouldn’t do again. The bottom line is that we’ve had no training session whatsoever on the pitch.

“First of all, the pitches were all waterlogged, with the heavy rain. Since the week before Christmas all the pitches were frozen. And with the roads the way they were we couldn’t even get together.”

The ban on collective intercounty training in November and December Hackett believes is biased against any new manager, no matter what their experience.

“It’s a huge disadvantage. I mean, a manager who has been there for a couple of years will know the capabilities of his players, and is therefore only really looking at a few new players at this time of year. I wouldn’t be fully familiar with the capability of the Westmeath players, because I haven’t seen them play together, or done any work with them together. Plus, I don’t think the ban is serving the purpose it was intended for. The type of player it was meant to protect is still out there playing college football.”

Hackett is nonetheless excited about the weeks and months ahead, and although there has been some controversy about the make-up of the Westmeath panel, he is more than happy with the response of those who have committed to the county cause.

“We picked the panel on the latter end of the club championship, and the couple of trial games. We had something like 85 players nominated, and all those were invited to the initial trials. We got that down to 65, and all those were given individual fitness programmes for November and December. We were able to make some assessment based on that, and, after that process, had a final trial, and ended up with the initial panel of 30. But we’ve been trying to assess players on very limited exposure.”

Among those missing from the initial panel of 30 are former All Stars Dessie Dolan and John Keane, along with David O’Shaughnessy, Derek Heavin and Martin Flanagan. Dolan is evidently disgruntled that his father, Dessie Snr, wasn’t considered for the Westmeath job after Tomás Ó Flatharta stepped down during the summer, while Keane has simply decided to retire.

“Certain players didn’t make themselves available, for a whole variety of reasons,” admits Hackett. “Some of them just didn’t want to commit, and Dessie Dolan was one of those. John Keane was very clear, even before I come in, that he wanted to retire. I met him myself and he just asked not to be considered. I have to respect his decision. But we had a process whereby everyone was invited to be a part of the panel. It wasn’t overly demanding, or time-consuming. So, with respect to everyone, my only focus now is on the players that have made themselves available.”

Hackett has put an experienced management team around him, including Michael Fagan, Paddy Collins, Mattie Fox and Gerry McDermott – along with input from 1992 Olympic boxing champion Michael Carruth, and canoeist Eoin Rheinisch, who was fourth at the Beijing Olympics.

“Michael is our chief masseur, but Eoin just came down for the couple of initial meetings, in the gym,” explains Hackett. “But that was more something the media just jumped on. Eoin will be away for most of the year. He’s actually in Australia at the moment.”

So, provided the weather doesn’t inhibit things any further, Hackett will this Sunday finally get to see his footballers on the field.

“We’re hoping we’ll get one training session before the game. But look, it’s a three-year period we’re looking at. You do need a short-term approach, but it’s the longer-term approach that matters. In the short-term it has been frustrating, but I’m just looking forward to getting started, and getting the team preparation fully under way.”