Westmeath manager Tom Cribbin says his side will "be giving it a go" when they take on Dublin in Sunday's Leinster football semi-final, but insists they will be realistic about their gameplan as they attempt to shock the All-Ireland champions.
The Lake County produced an impressive attacking display to win their quarter-final replay against Offaly last weekend and Cribbin is confident his side can put in another big performance at Croke Park this time out.
Westmeath go into the game faced with the usual underdog dilemma of how to tackle the mighty Dubs, but Cribbin says he will not bow to pressure to send his team out with an overly ambitious plan to take the champs on at their own game.
"It wouldn't be wise to be giving out all our tactics now, but we will be giving it a go. What shape giving it a go takes, people will have to wait until Sunday," Cribbin told 2fm's Game On.
"We have to do our own thing. Pundits are paid to do a job and they don't like to see games where the scoring is low and where it's defensive football.
"They have a job to do and I have a job to do. I have to listen to my players and I have to go with what we feel we can achieve within our squad.
"There's no point in me telling the players that everyone wants you to have a go. What's having a go? Going 15 on 15 and seeing if we are as good in every position as the All-Ireland champions the last two years? What does have a go mean?
"You have to be realistic. If we had 15 players the same quality as Dublin maybe we'd be the ones with two All-Ireland titles but we don't have them. Westmeath have only one Leinster title in their lifetime.
"We have to be very practical and see what is the best way we can set up our team to play to our full potential that might keep us the game towards the end. Maybe then we have an opportunity to have a go and see if we can win it."
It's a repeat of the last two Leinster finals, both of which Dublin won comfortably.
The Dubs claimed their sixth consecutive provincial title last July, but Cribbin remains steadfast in his belief that Westmeath performed well then, despite ending up suffering a 15-point defeat.
He said: "We were well in the game a few minutes into the second half last year, I thought at half-time when it was 0-07 to 0-06 that we could have been ahead. We had had the same number of chances.
"The problem was that we gave away a goal on something we had worked really hard on.
"The way Dublin get their goals if they are coming in the end-line, they put it across the square into the danger area and the guy coming with it knows that every one of his team-mates, if there's nothing else on, it's up to them to read the situation and try and get a hand on it.
"We had worked so hard on that and then when it happened it kind of deflated us a bit. Then the kick-out, straight away, in 15 seconds, was in the back of the net and all of a sudden there was eight points in it against the All-Ireland champions.
"It was too big a hill for us to try and climb. Our gameplan to have a go at it didn't even get to take off."
Yet Cribbin clearly believed their strategy had the potential to upset Jim Gavin's all-conquering side, and is hoping that the men in maroon can avoid such costly slips this time around and see if his players have what it takes to give it a rattle in the closing stages against their more heralded opponents.
"You can't become way better than you actually are overnight, just because you are playing the All-Ireland champions and you want to," he admitted.
"You're as good as you are and we have to devise a system and a gameplan that we think we can implement.
"In theory, you could sit down and draw a fabulous gameplan that would possibly beat the Dubs, but do you then have the players to implement that plan is the next part.
"We have to deal with what we have in our panel and that's the same as any other team in the country. You have to play to your own full potential and hope that's good enough. If it's not then you've done your best.
"I didn't think we got a lot wrong last year. Thirty seconds and two goals went in against us, and maybe things like that will happen when you're playing the top teams, but I thought the lads put in a massive first-half performance and created just as many chances as Dublin.
"Now whether we'd have been able to keep up that intensity for the full game I'm not sure, but hopefully we'll get the opportunity to test that out this weekend."
