ON the Thursday before Westmeath faced Meath in the Leinster quarter-final, Mark McHugh kept his panel of players in Cusack Park until just after midnight, making sure that each and every one was aware of their task in the ambush that they had planned.

The Midlanders rattled the net four times against their neighbours — one of three of their nine League and Championship matches this season when Westmeath have scored four goals or more.

Amid all the fear that the two-pointers have devalued the goal in Gaelic football, McHugh’s side are proving there is still worth in raising a green flag.

Westmeath’s achievement in shocking Robbie Brennan’s Royals, who everyone was lining up for a coronation as Leinster champions, was slightly overshadowed by what Conor Laverty and Down did in Letterkenny last week, but no less impressive because of that.

And their ability to find the net should fill their supporters with confidence heading back to O’Connor Park this weekend.

Granted, history and tradition are against them when facing Kildare. In 12 previous Championship matches, they have only beaten the Lilywhites twice —most recently in 2016. But a year ago, they let a Leinster quarter-final slip through their hands despite a tour de force from Luke Loughlin.

It has now emerged that their star forward Loughlin has been ruled out for the year and needs surgery on his hamstring.

Loughlin limped from the fray in the famous win over Meath and so key is the Mullingar native that his absence might tilt the balance towards Kildare. But only slightly.

Loughlin has been one of the players who has guided the county from the transition away from the team who reached two successive Leinster finals in the mid-2010s.

The likes of John Hesliin, Kieran Martin and James Dolan have all stepped away, with former AFL player Ray Connellan the last man standing from that 2016 side — if Westmeath do reach the provincial decider on Sunday, Connellan will be the first footballer from the county to play in three finals.

Just as Tom Cribbin did a decade ago, McHugh, a 2012 All-Ireland winner with Donegal, is leaning on a talented core of players such as Loughlin, Connellan, Matthew Whittaker and Ronan Wallace and augmenting them with some exciting young players, such as 20-year-old Shane Corcoran who scored 2-2 against Meath.

And he has also worked on trying to make the team more battle-hardened. For the past 18 months, Westmeath have been lumbered with the unwanted tag of ‘the unluckiest side’ in Ireland. Such is the reputation you get when you lose so many tight matches.

Take last year under Dermot McCabe, now in charge of his native Cavan. They picked up one point while getting relegated from Division 2 —, a draw in their final match with Roscommon. But that didn’t tell the full story as five of their six defeats were by three points or less. 

One score in those games and it could have flipped the other way. They could have just as easily been challenging for promotion

Losing close games was a trait that followed them into the summer, that narrow defeat to Kildare in Leinster, despite Loughlin’s heroics, to the shock loss to Wicklow in the Tailteann Cup. 

When McHugh graduated from McCabe’s backroom to take the helm, one of the first tasks he set was eradicating this tendency.

Even though it was only the O’Byrne Cup in January, that was why beating the Lilywhites by two points in Newbridge to win the pre-season competition felt significant. 

It was the type of tight encounter Westmeath had been losing throughout the previous season.

Old habits die hard, though. Westmeath were on course to bounce straight back up to Division 2, as has been their wont in recent years, until Wexford’s Sean Ryan popped up with a goal deep in injury-time — no hooters in the third tier — to send the Slaneysiders up.

 Another narrow one-score defeat could have crushed morale, but the sense from the midlands this week was that it was McHugh’s energy and effervescence which ensured that heads did not drop.

A couple of weeks later, Westmeath had scored five goals inside the first half-an-hour of their Championship opener against Longford — and they could have scored a hatful more during the second half, had they needed to. 

A few days after putting 5-25 on their midlands rivals in Pearse Park, McHugh, his backroom and the players were burning the midnight oil in Cusack Park, ensuring that the first ambush of this Championship was meticulously planned.

Every win over Meath is cherished in Westmeath — it is only 11 years since they recorded their maiden Championship victory over their more successful neighbours — but what happened in Tullamore fed into the current feelgood factor around football in the Lake County.

It came on the back of Westmeath minors and Under 20s both beating Dublin in the Leinster championship this year, the first time that has happened, while on St Patrick’s Day, Coláiste Mhuire, Mullingar registered an emotional Hogan Cup success, beating Tralee CBS, managed by Marc Ó Sé, in Croke Park, the first time that a Westmeath school won the All-Ireland title since Moate in 1981.

That success underlines the work that former Dublin footballer Darren Magee is doing as games development officer with members of the panel such as Loughlin and Jason Daly working as promotions officers.

The aim is to harness the potential in a county with two large towns in Athlone and Mullingar and other decent-sized places such as Moate and Kinnegad. But the senior team remain the flagship. 

It’s 22 years since the late Paídí Ó Sé led them to their one and only Leinster title. On Sunday, they are aiming to reach only their sixth provincial final – and avoid the Tailteann Cup, which they were inaugural winners of in 2022.

It’s something that will make it worth the while of players and management to have another couple of late nights in Cusack Park.