2015 season

I was critical of McGeeney in the past for picking stronger teams than necessary for the O'Byrne Cup early rounds. I think we didn't learn enough about our back up strength and that cost us in some big games later in the year when injuries kicked in.
It's disappointing that Ryan seems to be going down the same path. Surely we have won this competition often enough in recent years. We are guaranteed 3 matches and should use them as much as possible to see are many players capable of stepping up.
We cant experiment to much in the league as it is so competitive so this month is very important for us.
Anyway best of luck to all involved. Cant make it myself but hope to see the midweek game.

they could changes to that team for tomarrow

............

Agreed about playing so many experienced players. Surely Leper & Flats aren't going to benefit much from this, at least not as much as inexperienced players on the panel would. Gavin Farrell at corner-back is strange. 5 years ago the minors tried him at full-back the first day against Dublin and Ciaran Kilkenny tore him a new one. An honest committed player yes but short of pace for the full-back line.

Best of luck to the lads tomorrow.

Lads, we've :

4 debutants
3 players who need as much game time as possible ( Kelly, Doyle and Dowling)
Mulhall hasn't played in earnest for the county since early summer
We need a big year from Hugh Lynch as we're short at midfield
Leper needs to find some form
Ditto for Flats

All in all it's a decent line-up with plenty of logic. There's at less 2 more games plus challenge games to give others a go.

Sadly I can't wait for the game..

Any thoughts on today tempered by the knowledge that was a very inexperienced Louth team. Positives for me were performances of Paidi (would you expect anything else from the man?) and the two man full back line of Kelly and Fitz. Of the new lads thought O'Donoghue showed most promise at wing back while Farrell was solid and unspectacular. O'Brien's reading of the game at sweeper was good but he had the easiest job on the park given the opposition. What would be be like with proper inter county players running at him? Have my doubts he has the physique and mobility for inter-co and is a strange inclusion by Ryan. McNally, I'm sorry to say looked somewhat lost and unforgivably pulled out of one challenge in the first half when the ball was easily his. Harsh but true. Murphy and Burke both did well when they came on second half.

Leper mixed the good with the bad but great to see him, Kelly, Fitz, Doyle and Dowling playing football this early. Lynch had a decent game at midfield.

On the negative side it looks like plan A could be the direct route to Tomas again. Took his goal well but Mulhall and Dowling were too far away from his shoulder to really make his ball-winning pay. Direct ball to Tomas is fine for OBC but has never proven particularly successful in championship.

I agree that Louth were so bad that you can't read much into the performance.
At the back, Peter Kelly, Fitzy, Eoin Doyle(first half) and Cian O'Donoghue played well. Kelly and Doyle will be huge additions if they can keep fit this year. They are both no-nonsense defenders who make life difficult for the opposing forwards.
I thought both our midfielders did well. Paidi is Mr Consistent, always gives 100% and Hugh Lynch gets through a lot of work and always seems to get forward for a spectacular point. I think we are short of options here, it would be great if we could "find" a couple of midfielders before the championship.
Up front, I thought we looked a bit rusty. Leper, Tomas, Fionn Dowling and Darroch Mulhall all did well at times but took the wrong options other times. It was great to see Fionn Dowling play the full game and look sharp. He won a load of ball but didn't always use it well which is understandable after being out so long.
It was interesting to see us getting a lot of bodies back to defend when we lost the ball and try to hit long balls to Tomas and the forwards when we won it. I thought we looked solid defensively and I can't remember Mark Donnellan having to make a save. I know Tomas was isolated a lot of the time but it's something we can work on.

I'm forgetting about the score or the win, I was more interested in the team set up and style of play. Unfortunately I seen no discernible difference to last year. Maybe a little more counter attacking but we were still were cut open down the middle a couple of times.

Kelly and Fitzpatrick did well, but were up against very little.

I thought O'Donoghue (no.5) was very good and caught my eye. He was strong and pacy but never gave the ball away. He looks an intelligent footballer.

O'Brien played the sweeper well and read the game, he was also very vocal which was good to see as we don't have enough strong characters. However he may only be suited for winter football as even though he was very brave and played well the pace of summer football may be his undoing.

I was scorned by another poster a while back when I said O' Flaherty may not be an automatic choice anymore. Nothing today changed my mind. He was substituted again at half time, I just don't think Ryan Fancys him.

Hopefully a few more new faces on Wednesday to run the rule over.

Nice start for our first day out. Great to see so many different players being tried out, and some of the older lads blending well with them. Great to have peter kelly back. We missed him bigtime last year, and especially since mcgrillen is no longer part of the team he is a huge addition. O donoghue was good today, throwing himself into tackles and breaking up the field. leper showing well today and also O connor and darroch mulhall were pretty good. The only thing I noticed was the communication between forwards can be poor at times, with a lot of stray passes and fellahs not looking for other options and finding themselves cornered, when a simple ball out to the free man would have been better. Still though dowling and the likes came into it and its nice to rack up 1-16 on the first day out. Louth were very poor and did not look like threatening up front much at all. We were cut open on some occasions, but the backs dealt well overall.

It does look like another small sign that Ryan isn't bowled over by Flats.
That worries me because the bottom line is we hardly have six better. When the fat was on the fire last year, Eoghan produced, saving Ryan's job off the bench in Ennis and then scoring four points, including what should have been the winner, against Monaghan.

Like others on here the newcomer that impressed me most yesterday was O'Donoghue. However, another player I'd like to see more of is David Whyte. I know he wasn't on for long yesterday but physically he looks extremely strong, he's tall and worked hard when introduced. He could become a welcome option for the middle of the field.

Agree with all the summaries on yesterdays game. Played well in parts but were up against a very poor team.

Going on the assumption that Ryan is not too gone on Flats and from what we have seen of his selections in the forward line since he took over the forwards come the summer will look as follows all being fit,

The full forward line will be Smith, O'Connor and Mulhall.
If Paudi is not in midfield he will be at wing forward, that leaves two places on the 45 up for grabs. For them two spots you have Flats, Leaper, N Kelly, McNally, Fogarty, Dowling and Cribbin to name just some.

Maybe the reason Leaper and Flats played yesterday was to give them a chance to get into the team for the summer!!!!

We seem to have a lot of options in the forwards but nobody (apart from maybe Leper) seems to have nailed down a place. I thought Smith and Flats were our best forwards in the championship last year but both of them were on the bench for some of the games. I think Fogarty would be a more likely starter than Tomas but Tomas did okay yesterday. Dowling showed that he could push for a place if he can keep injury free.  

I'd agree that we don't have 6 forwards in Kildare better than Flats. I'd be amazed if he was taken off at half-time in a meaningless O'Byrne Cup match because he wasn't playing well enough. I'd assume he picked up a knock (like Eoin Doyle) or it was decided beforehand that he would only play a half.

- Louth's fringe players are no match for Kildare regulars.
- Peter Kelly will be a very important player this year.
- Paudie can still cover every single blade of grass.
- Tomas is still a great man to win ball but needs support runners around him.
- Mulhall is still a livewire.
- That terrace is still seriously arctic in January.

I don't think we learned much else from yesterday considering how weak Louth's team was. The newcomers didn't do their chances any harm but none of them really stood out either. We are bound to be very experimental against Carlow. Good to have the bit of football back at the weekends anyway.

Lets hope We can find the type of Player that can link with Thomas, The way Cooper and O Donoghoe link with Donaghy.. I dont think We have as of Yet.

If you think of it there are very few of the club teams playing in Kildare with a big target man at full forward so the players in the county set up, particularly the newer lads won't be used to playing this brand of football so it will take a bit of time for them to get used to playing off that big target man type player.

Kildare's injury list seems to be clearing up:

http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-games/gaelic-football/jason-ryan-optimistic-as-kildare-injury-worries-ease-1.2055746

Team for tonight

1 Shane Connolly St Laurences
2 Ciaran Fitzpatrick Kilcock
3 Peter Kelly Two Mile House
4 Sean Campbell Sarsfields
5 Willie Burke Two Mile House
6 Kevin Murnaghan Moorefield
7 Colin O Shea Milltown
8 Brian Kinahan Athy
9 Gary White Sarsfields
10 David Whyte Moorefield
11 Padraig O Neill St Laurences
12 David Slattery Confey
13 Darroch Mulhall Athy
14 Padraig Fogarty St Laurences
15 Seamus Hanafin Ballyteague

Good to see a few more of the new lads get a run out along side some of the established players.
Having Kinahan named in midfield is interesting, presume he will be sitting back and protecting the back line with Paudi and D Whyte helping out in midfield.
Should have too much for Carlow.

Find it hard to believe that gary white is still being tried in midfield. This is the same shite as the last few years. Everyone knows he aint a midfielder. Madness imo

Ogie wrote:

Team for tonight

1 Shane Connolly St Laurences
2 Ciaran Fitzpatrick Kilcock
3 Peter Kelly Two Mile House
4 Sean Campbell Sarsfields
5 Willie Burke Two Mile House
6 Kevin Murnaghan Moorefield
7 Colin O Shea Milltown
8 Brian Kinahan Athy
9 Gary White Sarsfields
10 David Whyte Moorefield
11 Padraig O Neill St Laurences
12 David Slattery Confey
13 Darroch Mulhall Athy
14 Padraig Fogarty St Laurences
15 Seamus Hanafin Ballyteague

With the execption being David Slattery.. Who exactly are the new Faces on here ?

He obviously feels Mulhall and Kelly need game time which is fair enough. Not sure we need to see PON agian as we know what he can do and has been doing for a long time.
Our options at midfield are limited as that selection shows but maybe he has plans for David White to move there at some stage.
It would be an interesting team to field against better opposition than Carlow and we would learn a lot more but we have no say in who we play of course.
Hopefully we are talking about one of the newer players tomorrow morning.

kildare 2-7 carlow 1-9

never in doubt

UCD beat Louth 2-8 to 0-12 tonight so a draw on Sunday would be good enough to advance.

Was at the NUI Maynooth Laois game. David Hyland played at midfield. Did well. Won a lot of ball and playing further up the field forced him to be a bit more creative in possession. Scored a good point and made very few mistakes. Killian Mulhall did quite well in defence but you couldn't say he was under that much pressure most of the time. David Duke was wing back. He started slowly and looked a little nervous against stronger Laois players. But he settled down and improved as the game went on. Took a good point in the second half when he took his man on the outside with a burst of pace and curled it over into the wind. Also turned over John O'Loughlin in possession and dumped James Finn on his backside with a shoulder in the second half. Credit as well to Noel Mooney for how well coached Maynooth looked.

As for Laois there's nothing new to report. If they have all their bast 15 fit and available in the summer, we'll face a massive test. But apart from a young corner back (Adam Campion) they have nothing new to add and very little depth. Brendan Quigley is back but Conor Meredith is not playing with them. Laois' first (and only) point from play came in the final quarter and the goal came late on. Their first wide was in the 42nd minute. The referee gave them some soft scorable frees in the first half to help them out and Maynooth missed two great goal chances in the second half. Could have been closer to twenty points than 8 points. The worst part was one of their starters was playing in what looked like tracksuit bottoms or leggings? He was awful, looked terrible small and O'Flatherta put him out of his misery after just 15 minutes. O'Flatherta better take his best 15 to Lourdes before the start of the league to try and keep them healthy.

Good to hear the 3 in a row dream lives on!! Seriously though would be interested to hear any reports about the game.