Louth wing-back Ray Finnegan has pointed to Westmeath's goal in Mullingar as the turning point in a controversial All-Ireland Senior Football Championship first round qualifier.
Louth had Mark Brennan and Darren Clarke sent off in the first half at Cusack Park, but the Wee County were in the game for long periods before eventually losing 1-15 to 0-12.
It was Westmeath substitute Callum McCormack who netted the decisive major, and Finnegan pointed to that, rather than the dismissals, as the primary reason for his side's defeat.
The St Patrick's, Lordship clubman felt his side had coped well with the situation, but were unable to recover from McCormack's 64th-minute strike.
"We got in at half-time and tried to regroup and set ourselves up for the second half.
"You just have to go at it. Try and sit back, soak up a bit of pressure and maybe hit Westmeath on the counter-attack. That's what we were hoping to do.
"Westmeath went ahead. We tried to come back into it; got back level. Had another attack maybe to go a point ahead and our attack broke down and Westmeath broke quick and got a goal from it. And I think the goal kind of killed us."
Many observers felt Clarke's dismissal was harsh. And while Finnegan admitted the red card was "unfortunate", he refused to criticise referee Derek Fahy.
"I suppose every referee sees it his own way. Decisions are made; you just have to get on with it. You can't do anything about it on the field."
The diplomatic Finnegan also refused to blame the problems the Louth camp has had with injury and emigration for the defeat.
"Every county has the same situation. You just have to put out 15 and get on with it. There's no point crying about it. You get out the 15 on the field and hope for the best," Finnegan said.
"We came down looking for a good performance and to get a good result, and I thought we played fairly well but the result just didn't go our way."
