Oisín McConville: 'Unbelievable' footballers delivered for Wicklow against Westmeath

After relegation to Division 4, few were giving Wicklow much of a chance against a Westmeath side, who rose to Division 2, but Garden County boss Oisín McConville felt the "unbelievable footballers" in his side were full value for their Leinster SFC preliminary round win in Portlaoise.

In the end, Wicklow ran out one-point winners at MW Hire O'Moore Park, this after leading by seven at the break and then withstanding late pressure from the Lake County as they strove to keep their provincial dreams alive.

Despite a league campaign that only yielded one win from seven, McConville felt the form shown throughout February and March was not an indicator of his team's true worth.

On that point, he told RTÉ Sport: "It has been a tough year. We found it really difficult to get results. Our performances have probably been better than what they suggested so we knew there was a performance like this in us.

"Some of the results have been disappointing, some of the performances have been disappointing. But this is them. This is their identity.

"They'll give you absolutely everything until they can’t give you anymore and that’s what they did today.

"When you want to perform at your optimum is when championship comes around and I thought, today, considering the things that went against us, lost a defender to a black card, one to what I thought was a pretty poor tackle, Malachy [Stone] who wasn’t fit to play after getting sent off the last day, we just dug in and won the battles.

"When we needed to win the ball in the middle of the field we won it. That’s a big change from where we have been over the last number of weeks."

The Armagh All-Ireland winner went on to praise the way his troops dealt with the expected late onslaught from Westmeath.

"We