John Heslin Reflects on Mayo's Triumph and Westmeath's Future
John Heslin watched Mayo finally lift Sam Maguire and saw more than history being made. He saw a door swing open for counties like his own.
Mayo’s 75-year wait ended on Sunday, a seismic All-Ireland SFC triumph that rewrote one of Gaelic football’s longest-running storylines. As the country basked in Andy Moran’s breakthrough, Heslin was already thinking about what it meant for Westmeath.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio 1’s Inside Sport alongside Brendan Devenney and Ciarán Whelan, the 34-year-old sounded like a man who has no intention of drifting quietly out of the inter-county game.
“It kind of gives every other county that hope,” he said, reflecting on Mayo’s win and Mark McHugh’s comments on The Sunday Game. “As a sportsperson you just want to have that hope and that chance. The hunger is still there for sure.”
For Heslin, that hunger has already dragged him back once. He returned to the Westmeath panel this year after an initial retirement that stretched to almost 18 months. Any suggestion that he might be ready to walk away again was quickly dismissed.
“Still a current Westmeath footballer anyway,” he joked. “I was golfing with Mark McHugh a couple of weeks ago and he didn’t tell me to retire yet, so current for now.”
That “current” status comes at the end of a year when Westmeath refused to stay in the background. Mayo’s All-Ireland understandably dominates the narrative, but Westmeath quietly carved out one of their greatest seasons.
With Heslin back in the fold, they claimed just the second Leinster title in the county’s history, toppling Dublin in a gripping provincial final at Croke Park in May. For a player who had spent his entire inter-county life watching Dublin collect Leinster titles, that day carried a personal edge.
He had, as he pointed out, been on record before the season saying that it would be “bittersweet” if Westmeath finally beat Dublin at a time when he was no longer involved, after 14 seasons in which the Dubs won Leinster every single year he played.
Instead, the script flipped. He came back, and he was there.
Yet when asked to pick his match of the year, Heslin didn’t choose the day they toppled the provincial giants. He went back further, to a game he watched from the outside, as a supporter.
Westmeath’s quarter-final win over Meath in Tullamore – 4-18 to 0-25 – still crackles in his memory. Meath arrived as one of the fancied sides for Leinster. Westmeath arrived as “severe underdogs”.
They left with a statement.
“We haven’t gotten over Meath too many times in the championship,” Heslin admitted. That context made what unfolded in Tullamore all the more powerful. From the stand, as a former player not yet officially back in the dressing room, he saw something shift.
The young Westmeath players tore into Meath and never blinked. They hit four goals, with Shane Corcoran rifling in a “wonder goal” and Matty Whittaker adding another before going on to earn a place on The Sunday Game Team of the Year for his performances.
Those scores, that audacity, lodged in Heslin’s mind. The victory didn’t just knock out Meath; it announced that this Westmeath team had another gear.
“It epitomised this year’s championship and particularly the way Mayo won,” he said. On that day in Tullamore, he felt a spark – a sense that Westmeath had “something special” brewing.
His own recall to the panel came after that game, and he laughed that it felt like “they were just taking a fan from the crowd.” But that is exactly how he experienced it: as a supporter first, a player again second.
So when he weighs up his season, he deliberately parks the Leinster final win over Dublin to one side, to “give the lads the full credit they deserve” for that achievement. His personal match of the year remains Westmeath v Meath, viewed through the eyes of a Mullingar man in the stands, not a forward on the pitch.
“That for me will live long in my memory as a Westmeath fan,” he said, before adding the line that will encourage every supporter in the county: “but obviously now still as a player as well.”
Mayo’s breakthrough has redrawn the map for the traditional outsiders. Westmeath have already nudged their way into that conversation. With Heslin’s hunger undimmed and a new generation firing, the question is no longer whether they belong there – it’s how far this group is prepared to push.
