Kildare v Roscommon

Any thoughts ahead of the weekend?

Need a win at all costs.....        don't care about the performance....

Be good to get Peter kelly back and hopefully some game time for Tommy Moolick, well capable of building on last week and will need to in order to win

Kildare 4/6, Roscommon 6/4, Draw 15/2.

Kildare by 2.

Those odds surprise me .....but hopefully the bookies will have got it right

They got it wrong last week end in Cavan. Fancied a few quid on us at those odds but always feel it jinxes us/me.
Saw Moolick before the WM game and he didn't look too close to a comeback but maybe the two weeks since has been good to him. If he's not fit I'd pair Cribbin with Flynn or Chalky.

Want to see Alan Smith and Fogarty come into the forward line, particularly if Kelly is not risked (I wouldn't expect him to be). At the back P Kelly's return would be welcome - tough call on whoever is left out though. O'Grady scored an 8 in the Indo ratings on Monday (what games do they watch?) but I would have thought his place is at risk in the back 6. Or Conway perhaps but he's going to be important come Championship and is just feeling his way back. On balance though I'd move Cribbin the elder forward.


My team:

Donnellan
Lyons
Kelly
O'Grady

Doyle
Conway
Bolton

Cribbin P
Flynn

Cribbin K
O'Flaherty
O'Neill

Callaghan (though skating on thin ice)
Fogarty
Smith

Tommy Moolick was in the stand at the Cavan game as well, not togged out, Is he back training yet?

For me Mick o'Grady has been excellent and would be one of the first on the team sheet.

I would agree with your team crofter but I'd give Dowling another go full forward, he did drop a few easy balls the last day and got bottled up in the second half a couple of times, but he got two good scores, i'm not totally convinced by him but think he is worth another go.

I worry we'll be a bit toothless without Kelly and therefore I really hope Smith is back and match fit.

I suppose you could argue that he'll only get match fit if he plays matches.We need a greater return from the inside line this weekend and with N Kelly the only who has looked the part there unlikely to feature it's a chance for the other to stake a claim.

Thats not bad crofter.. But Callaghan has to go Captain or not, and for Me Mulhall to come back in,.. maybe being dropped might shake Him up.

I can see that argument Seamus, and it's a toss up honestly. I thought Leper won a fair amount of ball and offered an outlet for the inside pass on Sat night whereas Mulhall has been completely off form in his last few games, losing ball, straying too far out (under orders?) and making poor decisions generally. That said he looks more likely to score a point or two than Eamon and gives us a left sided freetaker. So yes.. plenty of arguments to include him.

Last year it was our center back we kept looking at, this year its our full forward line. Hard to know who to put in there.
Kelly wont play due to the u21s so id go for mullhal. We still dont know our midfield thou but i think cribbon has to remain there. Lynch is after slowing up alot after injuries.
Think if our full forward plays close to goal n we attack from our own 45 we should get a win. Great to have bolton back aswel, he made a huge difference last week, give direction.

If I had the choice P Criibin and Dan Flynn in the middle. Lynch lumbers around so surely better to have two men with pace there. Also neither are exactly lacking in height.
Plus if they do blast forward you have a man like Paidi with game intelligence to plug the gap.

Team to face Roscommon :
Donnellan
Lyons o'grady bolton
K cribbin f conway doyle
Lynch p cribbin
D flynn o'flaherty paudie O'Neill
Leper dowling podge fogarty

Would have liked to see mulhall start in the corner and play close to goal with dowling given a chance on d forty. Flynn to go to the middle with cribbin. Apart from that it's probably the best available. At present it's hard to see a lot of scores coming from the forward line. Bolton has to start on d centre back line, give us a bit of direction to move forward quicker.

Looks a fairly attacking team to me with a half-back (Bolton) in the full-back line and a half-forward (Keith Cribbin) in the half-back line. We've gone from being too attacking last year to being too defensive this year - hopefully we've got the balance right now.

I think it's a must win game for us to stay in Division 2. This game and the Laois game are our best chances of getting to 6 points which is usually enough to stay up. Hopefully we can build on last week's good result but Kildare are so inconsistent these days it's hard to know what to expect.

Best of luck to Kildare tomorrow.

It's a real must win match. Losing and we are prob. looking a Div 3 next year.

P W L D F A POINTS
1 DOWN.....4 3 1 0 68 63 6
2 MEATH.....4 2 1 1 63 54 5
3 GALWAY...3 2 1 0 57 53 4
4 WESTMEA 4 2 2 0 59 63 4
5 LAOIS.......4 1 2 1 58 61 3
6 ROSCOMM 3 1 1 1 48 51 3
7 CAVAN......4 1 2 1 53 57 3
8 KILDARE....4 1 3 0 60 64 2

Can see changes tbh.. Not sure Lynch will start again.
Its Mad but a Win Today and We probably jump to 4th.

Lucky to be 3 points up at half time. Our defending is shocking, Roscommon opening us up every time they attack. Getting cleaned at midfield, luckily they are letting us kick it out short every time. Wouldn't be that confident we'll win, to be honest.

Some match . 2-9 to 0-12 at half time. Another master class from Cribbin until he seemed to tire. Awful pity he doesn't carry a scoring threat (ahem...). Our defence is truly awful against any half decent forward line. Turned every time and conceding 12 points in one half is shocking. Obviously our manager thinks otherwise as his first thought it is to substitute a corner forward. We djny have a lot of defensive quality on the bench which may be his thinking. Lyons, O'Grady, Conway and Bolton all very poor so far. Ros have wind in their sails and behind their backs now and it's hard not to fancy them to get a goal.

We need to pick it up again around midfield and defence need to keep their heads - they gave away some awful ball at the end of that half.

And Flats can't afford to crumble under pressure like he did with those last two kicks.

Fingers crossed - we need this win or we're as good as down.

Just seen Cavan beat Galway - bloody hell....

Staying in D2 looking precarious at this stage. 3pts down after 15 mins in 2nd half

Remember when a Division One semi-final, a two-point qualifier loss to Tyrone that could have gone either way, a Leinster under-21 title and Leinster minor football title in the one season caused people to say this isn't good enough, Kildare are above this, time for an overhaul, we aren't reaching our potential here? Just seems an apt time to throw it in as it's what popped into my head listening in to the second half here.

Typing this as I leave Conleths Park. 4 points down.

Having Conceded 21 points in 60 odd mins of football against Roscommon. No home league wins in 2015.

Awful football. Muck.

Sack Ryan now. Not in morning. NOW

It may seem cruel but as someone who has followed, roared on and cried over Kildare since I could walk from pitch openings to an empty Walsh Park and back, I'm actually laughing, it's so pathetic it doesn't even hurt. Way beyond that. Meltdown of spectacular proportions. 24 points at home on a windy day in March?!  Going down, ding!

(And for those saying certain posters are revelling in it and so on, tough, those who gave warnings were abused, told they didn't have a clue, didn't know what they were talking about, would be proven wrong, didn't understand football. Sow, reap, etc, and we're reaping salted earth!)

Division Two
1. Down          5          8        +18  
2. Meath         4          5        +9
3. Roscommon 4          5        +3
4. Cavan         5          5        -2
5. Galway       4          4        +2  
6. Westmeath  5          4        -17
7. Laois          4          3        -3
8. Kildare        5          2        -10

Next year's fixture list at this point will include - Laois/Westmeath, Tipperary, Sligo, Louth, Clare, Offaly and Longford. Wow. Maybe they could be warm-up act for the hurlers in 2016?