Despite a 13-point win over neighbours and rivals Meath in the second group game of the Joe McDonagh Cup, ever the perfectionist Westmeath boss Michael Ryan was still not entirely happy with his side's performance.

During the second quarter of the clash in Cusack Park last Sunday, the home side produced some of their best hurling in years when they hit an unanswered 1-11 to move into a commanding position at half time.

However, they were thankful that Meath were so wasteful on front of goals and 17 wides by the Royals and a missed penalty certainly didn't help their cause.

Ryan admitted to the Westmeath Examiner that it was great to get two wins from their opening two matches, but added that there were still areas of their game that needed to be worked on.

"I wouldn't be completely happy with Sunday. While there were some aspects that were good and we played some fantastic hurling in the first half, certainly we were sloppy in the second half and when you come up against a better team, you will be punished for that. But when we used the ball well, we were very, very good," stated Ryan.

The Waterford native had high praise for the returning Aonghus Clarke who missed the entire NHL campaign as he was off travelling, but Ryan added that they had leaders all over the field.

"He's a class act in my opinion, Aonghus Clarke would be on any team in this country, he's that good. But it wasn't just about Aonghus, right around the pitch when we moved the ball well and made the game simple, we were very good. There were times when we over-complicated it and we didn't need to do that. We let them back into it at times."

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