meath v kildare 7 feb @7pm

kildare when breaking forward at pace need to stop giving away the ball too easily passes being intercepted and dropping balls is killing them and when stopped by a shoulder no player to lay off the ball to

I think dan flynns pace as an outlet on the counter attack could be massive for us. A fully fit Paul cribbin will also give us a serious lift.

agree with that and i suppose its still in febuary may is when its required

SeamusMurphy wrote:

Ogie wrote:

SeamusMurphy wrote:

The Meath Midfield pairing are also their U21 Pairing.. I was chatting to a Fella from Meath who told Me they had 11 U21s on their Senior Panel, to our 2... My point, either We dont have them, or were reluctant to bting them trough ??

Jesus we played 10 of them two years ago, giving championship debuts to eight and the manager got the sack!

Does that mean We shouldnt bring anymore trough, if there good enough ??

Absolutely not... are they? You'd know that better than me being close to the thing. Maybe he plans on doing so after the championship? I have no idea. The lads I wouldn't mind coming into the senior squad weren't even picked on the first U21 panel I saw, so what do I know?!

All I will say is people get fierce upset when a guy has been brought in and he doesn't get game-time, bleating that a guy never got a chance as if he hasn't had a chance at all in training!

On another note completely though (I can't remember if I've asked the question before), is Murnaghan injured?

I hope to god we improve. Westmeath are a completely new prospect than last year and their performance against Galway on sunday backs this up. We have 2 and a bit weeks to raise the bar completely. Cribben will have them well versed on us. They are better than meath and while saturdays loss ultimately comes down to ineptness in our forwards play no support play and other simple mistakes, it is certainly going to be very tough.

Some Fellas (u21) didnt commit Ogie, for different reasons.. Its a very awkward Competition, with training taking place in the depts of Winter, and unlike Minor, Lads are away in College, or Working, and its a massive commitment for what could be One Match (as was the case for many a Year gone by)..
Im not sure as to who could make the step up.. but I will say there is no shortage of pace..

Anyway back on topic.. and speaking of pace, is Cathal Mc Nally injured ?

Difficult to disagree with Colm O'Rourke's assessment:

Quote :

When Kildare descend to the level of all-out defence, it means the plague has become all-consuming. Naturally, they must have had concerns about conceding late goals as they did against Down in their first game, but to see all the Kildare team in their own half at times against Meath was really throwing in the towel. It was a horrible style played horribly. Maybe they don't have the class of previous teams; they certainly don't have incisive forwards like John Doyle, Tadhg Fennin or Eddie McCormack to take on their men. Now they all look the same, play the same and the suspicion that Kildare have a soft centre becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Teams put on more and more pressure and they fold so everyone else sees that and copies it. The flight-or-fight syndrome was first developed by Walter Cannon, an American physiologist in the 1920s. Kildare need to stand their ground in big games and start winning tight matches, otherwise the soft-touch tag will persist. Perception is reality and the players are the only ones who can change that.

"Perception is reality and the players are the only ones who can change that."
I think that sentence says it all. Unwillingness to tackle players as they run through you is the main problem in my opinion. You could never imagine Kerry players with that same attitude.
I think its too easy to blame the manager, the new manager is going to have to work with the same players.

I think our tackling technique is poor as much as anything. We're either not able to stop the man or give away a free. I think we should be working on this in training and improving. You can accept other teams having better players that us, but we should be able to tackle as well as anyone else.  

Hard to argue with any of what Colm O'Rourke says. We've gone from having not enough men back to having way too many back. It's not working and it looks terrible. We need to get the balance right fairly quickly.

I totally agree with JohnnyC, our tackling is among the worst around, the system we are playing now relies heavily on good disciplined tackling, our players seem incapable of this as evidenced by the amount of frees we have given away in the last two games. When you have 12-13 and sometimes 15 men behind the ball, there is absolutely no need to foul but we do it anyway. Maybe they are let away with murder in terms of the tackling in the training games they play as they always seem amazed anytime the ref gives a free against them!

Have not posted on the last two games but agree mainly by what has being said about them. I am still hoping for a turnaround but I fear that it is just hope.

Topcat I think there is two things to your point. Are the defenders let away with "fouling" in training or is it that they just dont have to defend against the type of forward they face in games. Our forwards always turn back when confronted by the defender. If that is happening in training also then defenders are not being tested properly. Good forwards run at defenders and stay running till disposed or fouled. If you are not tested that way in training then how can you become better!!!!

Its up to the manager to ensure you are being tested in training. If that means bringing in lads that are not on the panel for a couple of nights to test lads then do that. Hell bring in lads from outside the county if that's whats needed. If you are not being tested in training you will not improve.

Just as a side note - and not directly related but didn't know where to put it - the fixtures from Croke Park aren't exactly progressive, helpful or visionary. Our first two games in the football league were Down in Newbridge and Meath in Navan. Our first two games in the hurling league were Down in Newbridge and Meath in Navan on completely different dates. PS Well done to hurlers on two wins, would have been nice especially after last season for some foresight to promote the game and their efforts in front of bigger crowds. Understand there are issues to be taken into account, just makes little sense to me.

kildare have no forward that can be a goal threat every time i agree a point is on the mind ,gooch of old odonoughe, bray, oconner of mayo ,conway mayo , also dublin have several lads like that think goal first and run in straight lines not like our forwards it always seems to be lateral thinking