See the resemblance?

Remember them in 2004.

Strong, hard, athletic, fast, skilful, but most importantly fresh. Leinster annexed to the enjoyment of all, famine ended, life tasted, pleasant memories left in the corner.

Thanks lads, safe home. . .

Please lads, safe home.

They've come full circle this year. Completed the lap and now the comments coming from the camp ahead of the Dublin game are frighteningly familiar to those at the beginning of the season.

Before the first round against Offaly they moaned about the loss of Rory O'Connell and Dessie Dolan. Two outstanding players, no doubt, but by the time a dire derby was there for the taking, it was so engrained in their minds they just couldn't compete with such losses, they didn't. They fell away limp and lifeless, long after we'd stopped watching a wretched game of football.

Four wins on the bounce, including the defeat of Galway last time out, should have changed that. It should have inspired a little confidence and self-belief. Clearly it hasn't as proven by goalkeeper Gary Connaughton's comments ahead of the All Ireland quarter-final. "Dublin on paper, will wipe us off the field, but when we get there you know we will give it everything. We are going up there with nothing to lose at all."

Not the comments of a team that feel comfortable entertaining such company so late in the evening. They don't seem to realise there is everything to lose. The momentum, a place in an All Ireland semifinal, their season are all on the line. It sounds like they are happy to make up the numbers.

And maybe they are. Maybe they realise that luck has been on Westmeath's side this year, in that just about everyone they've faced haven't had any.

They won promotion on the back of Cavan losing to Waterford. The first round of the qualifiers saw them enter with their noses bleeding and lips swollen. It would have been the end of the road except that they drew London. It took two injury-time points by Donal O'Donoghue and Michael Ennis to clamber past a home tie with Limerick and even then, the visitor's had a close-in free to level matters.

Problem was by then Muiris Gavin had gone off and the chance was left at the feet of Johnny Murphy.

It just keeps going. It took a late Gary Dolan goal to bundle Sligo out of the way in extratime, although Sligo had three players receive red, one harshly and one because the already booked Eamon O'Hara was mistakenly identified as culprit Sean Davey. "They showed their resilience and their fighting spirit in that game by coming back, " said Davey this week, "But I think we would have won that game if that decision hadn't been taken. We were down three men and we still had become so adventurous that we were all piling forward in the closing stages, despite the numbers."

And then there was Galway. A fine result for Tomas O Flaharta's side, no matter the circumstances, but that was a game thrown away by the home side who were so atrocious that Peter Ford couldn't find words in the aftermath.

You can't blame him. His side trailed by just two points at the break, had a gale force wind at their backs in the second and had cleaned Westmeath out at centre-field for 35 minutes.

And while Dessie's return has provided enough firepower to get Westmeath past mediocre opposition, a solo threat is no longer enough.

When Westmeath won that Leinster title, Dolan kicked 38 per cent of their scores yet still averaged 5.2 points a game. By last year, he accounted for 52 per cent of their championship scores, averaging six points a game. It's why this year they needed Alan Mangan and Denis Glennon to step up. In the league Mangan was kicking just 1.7 points per game and Glennon 1.4 alongside Dolan's 6.6. While in the qualifiers Mangan was responsible for just 0-6 in the four games, with Glennon kicking 0-12, although 0-10 was against London. It's why this Westmeath side aren't the side of two years ago. They don't have the same quality and clearly they don't have the same belief and confidence.

A quiet word of warning.

Dublin's party isn't so polite.