Ger Donnelly and The Kildare County Board

Ps. Isn't he gone yet? I keep listening to KFM but he doesn't seem to have done the decent thing. Surely the bus home could have de-toured to the Carlow border on the M9 and ditched him out there?
Come on Jason, give us something to celebrate on this day of misery..

These may be small things but surely the CB should recognise our players ? Gavin Farrell mixed up with Eoin Doyle? I'm being pedantic I know...

KILDARE: M Donnellan; O Lyons, C Fitzpatrick, M O'Grady; P Kelly, F Conway, E Bolton; G White, P Cribbin; K Cribbin, E O'Flaherty, F Dowling; A Smith, P Fogarty, E Callaghan. Subs: D Hiland for Fitzpatrick (35), D Flynn for Fogarty (35), T Moolick for White (50), C McNally for Callaghan (55), M Conway for O’Flaherty (60), G FARRELL for K Cribbin (68).

(Maybe they were still getting over the shock of the Islamic invasion of St Conleth's Towers...

Lads, it's a dark day for Kildare football and we need to stick to the topic. I agree 100%, bring Brian Murphy in immediately. He has consistently produced quality Kildare minor teams that have been able to go toe to toe with Dublin. McGeeney's leinster winning u21 side of 2013 was a product of Murphy's exceptional minor side of 2010.

Murphy has produced roughly about 70% of the current senior squad. Dan Flynn and Paul Cribben played minor under him and they have returned from Oz to play for us. Paddy Brophy, Sean Hurley and Kevin Feeley all played minor for him as well and I hope we'll see them in the white jersey again soon.

We have the quality in the squad to play division one football. Armagh got relegated from division two last year yet should have beaten Donegal in the quarter final last year. Get Brian Murphy in now, get some of this year's u21s in and most importantly get some confidence back in the camp!!!

Not sure if he'd be the option long term but id give him it for the championship this very minute. However Brian Murphy now won't happen. For a number of reasons but the main one being that the county board has no balls.

It would also mean having to make a decision without the back up of the club's to blame.

There's a County Board meeting Tuesday night, I wonder if it possible that one of the 40 odd clubs in Kildare table a motion of no confidence in Jason Ryan. It would have to be discussed then would it not?

Failing that it will be business as usual along with Forcing clubs to fundraise due to their shot comings.

In reality there will be a load of shouting and balling. Lads will air their annoyance but feck all will happen.
Those talking of the players making a move are dreaming. We don't have many leaders on the field so I'd say some lads are happy to let Ryan be the mudguard for all this.
Re county board forcing tickets on clubs...I said it at the time wtf were they thinking when they announced it. The bad move was saying sell these or else.
A bit of cop on would have sold the positives in that the prizes are good and clubs will get money...but no have people against a good draw from the get go.

Does the new chairman want to be tied to Ryan. It will look very bad for him if his tenure coincides with a complete collapse of our County team.

He has a chance and a perfect excuse to get rid now, stamp his own authority on things and show leadership.

If he leaves him in charge, he will appear weak and powerless and lacking in qualities to lead Kildare GAA.

Step up Mr. Donnelly and lead the County.

LillieLad wrote:

Id give anything to have McGeeney back. The majority of people wanted him to stay here but change the strength and conditioning. The clubs fucked us up because they had their own agenda.

  did u ask sallins gaa why they did not vote that night, weclome kildare gaa its all a CLICK

There's a guy in Boards.ie (albeit a Laois man) who maintains a ranking table for football which I keep an eye on and is quite accurate to my mind. It's pretty stark how far we've fallen even this year :

yesterday
05/04/2015 17:48

laoisman11
Registered User

laoisman11
Registered User
Final round of games in the NFL resulted in some major outliers due to teams who had little to gain/lose.
Dublin recapture number 1 position, previously held in August 2014
In terms of rating points exchange, Sligo's win over Armagh (3.00 rating points) and Derry's win over Cork (2.46 rating points) rank the highest, but it must be kept in mind that these games were effectively dead-rubbers (apart from Sligo, who were relegation-threatened)
Louth's loss results in them dropping 5 ranking places (albeit a minor drop in rating points) due to wins for many of the teams slightly below them in the rankings; they now lie at their lowest position since July 2010

Overall, since the start of this year's league:
Fermanagh have gained 5.79 rating points and 5 ranking places
Kildare have dropped 5.5 rating points and 5 ranking places
Louth have given up 4.67 rating points and 7 ranking places


# Δ Rank Team Rating points Δ Rating
1 increase Dublin 100.08 1.49
2 decrease Kerry 98.28 -0.43
3 steady Donegal 97.71 0.08
4 increase Mayo 95.79 -0.08
5 decrease Cork 94.90 -2.46
6 steady Monaghan 93.96 -1.49
7 increase Tyrone 89.62 0.43
8 increase Meath 87.65 0.37
9 decrease Armagh 87.28 -3.00
10 steady Derry 87.20 2.46
11 steady Roscommon 85.07 0.91
12 increase Galway 84.54 1.29
13 steady Down 84.29 0.76
14 decrease Kildare 82.83 -1.29
15 increase Laois 82.23 -0.76
16 decrease Tipperary 81.19 -1.94
17 steady Cavan 80.49 -0.37
18 steady Fermanagh 78.26 -1.22
19 steady Longford 76.69 0.45
20 increase Sligo 75.32 3.00
21 steady Westmeath 74.37 -0.91
22 steady Clare 74.35 1.22
23 steady Limerick 74.09 1.38
24 increase Wexford 74.01 1.94
25 decrease Louth 74.00 -1.38
26 increase Offaly 71.13 0.85
27 decrease Antrim 70.11 -0.85
28 steady Leitrim 69.54 0.21
29 steady Wicklow 64.45 -1.55
30 increase London 62.37 1.55
31 decrease Carlow 62.27 -0.45
32 steady New York 60.70 0.00
33 steady Waterford 60.33 -0.21

Those in favour: JTBGAA ballykellygfc MilltownGAA NurneyGAA Castledermotgaa ClogherinkoeGAA BroadfordHurling NaasGAA Coill Dubh Eire Og Allenwoodgfc AnChillGaa KilcullenGAA Robertstown StKevinsGfc Carbury

Against: ATHYGFC StLaurencesGaa upthesash CelbridgeGAA TwoMileHouseGAA Eadestown Suncroft Castlemitchell Grange - MoorefieldGaa abstained; Executive officers against: John Joe Walsh; Mick Gorman; Eddie Lawler and Martin Whyte whose club Kilcullen voted in favour.

Great bunch of lads.

Martin Whyte not only voted against the executive committee he was on but also the club he was a member of. This bloke is still in a position of influence in Kildare GAA. He will be telling us about our finances and how poor they. What chance have we.

Hard to disagree with our ranking of 14th in Crofter's list. That flatters us a bit, based on some of our displays in the league. We're falling like a stone and the sooner something is done to address the situation, the better.

I wouldn't be as negative as some about the quality of players we have available. I think players like Peter Kelly, Lyons, Hyland, Eoin Doyle, Bolton, Moolick, Paul Cribbin, Dan Flynn, Niall Kelly, O'Flaherty and Smith have the potential to form a team that could challenge for a top 8 position. I think a big problem is in the poor quality of coaching in the set-up. I can't think of one player who has improved this year, most have regressed and players are making the same mistakes game after game. Allied with a poor team shape, an unsuitable style of play and bad tactics it looks like the players have lost all belief. It was obvious after 10 minutes yesterday after Galway had cut us open 3 times that we're a busted flush. It would be scary to think what Dublin would do to us.

Is that the same Martin Whyte who minded our finances for 5 years; the same guy who kept no record of who sponsored the signage around St Conleth's ,who thought he had signed 6/7 Club Kildare cheques but it transpired he had signed all 30+ cheques? Or is it the guy who shook hands with McGeeney and pledged his full support a few days before the night of the infamous vote? Just curious.

what went on that meeting that night was unreal

JohnnyC wrote:

Hard to disagree with our ranking of 14th in Crofter's list. That flatters us a bit, based on some of our displays in the league. We're falling like a stone and the sooner something is done to address the situation, the better.

I wouldn't be as negative as some about the quality of players we have available. I think players like Peter Kelly, Lyons, Hyland, Eoin Doyle, Bolton, Moolick, Paul Cribbin, Dan Flynn, Niall Kelly, O'Flaherty and Smith have the potential to form a team that could challenge for a top 8 position. I think a big problem is in the poor quality of coaching in the set-up. I can't think of one player who has improved this year, most have regressed and players are making the same mistakes game after game. Allied with a poor team shape, an unsuitable style of play and bad tactics it looks like the players have lost all belief. It was obvious after 10 minutes yesterday after Galway had cut us open 3 times that we're a busted flush. It would be scary to think what Dublin would do to us.

Agree 14th might flatter us if you take a league perspective but it's based on league and championship, hence Armagh as high as they are for instance. As regards players I think we all tend to overstate the quality of our lads because we so desperately want them to be great. But then we see our defenders torn to shreds by real talent such as the likes of Shane Walsh yesterday (not even selected to start originally) and our forwards struggling to make any headway against relatively average defences.

Those you listed are good solid players but which of our defenders are really doing what's required even at Division 2 level. Our whole defence seems to be slow to get out to the ball and easily turned by many Div 2 forwards. Unlike you, however I can think of one player who has definitely improved : Paul Cribbin has emerged as a beast of a footballer in the last couple of months, whether down to coaching or not I don't know. He seems to have strengthened and is now a serious option as a mobile midfielder or half-back / half-forward. The Galways lads beside me were singing his praises amid their general dismissal of the Kildare 15. You might argue Fionn Dowling has improved also. But that's probably it.

That said, with a proper structure, which means a kick-out strategy, tighter defence (sweeper) and some semblance of an attacking plan, there is no reason the group of players we have shouldn't be able to operate safely in Div 2. And as they mature (many are still relatively young) and we add one or two of the recent underage teams, who knows whether we might be able to get back to Div 1. A few other players will need to step up like Cribbin though and off the field we need a leader of substance to pull it all together.

I am no lover of the County Board in any way whatsoever however as I am not willing to put myself forward for any position I will not publicley beat up on this forum any person who is willing to 'get involved' at county board level, they will always be on a hiding to nothing.

I am sure that these people give up their time and do their best, indeed including Jason Ryan ( with whose appointment is totally disagreed with ).

Gaa1928 wrote:

I am no lover of the County Board in any way whatsoever however as I am not willing to put myself forward for any position I will not publicley beat up on this forum any person who is willing to 'get involved' at county board level, they will always be on a hiding to nothing.

I am sure that these people give up their time and do their best, indeed including Jason Ryan ( with whose appointment is totally disagreed with ).

wonder was told ryan when he joined backroom staff under geeney that he had job when geeney was finished with kildare

It's high time we went back to basics as a football county. The divide between club and county in Kildare is massive and it's such a regressive attitude.

The county team and the clubs should not be viewed as two completely seperate entities. They should essentially compliment one another. When the county team are going well (late 90s seem a long time ago now!) it peaks interest in the game. Kids wearing Kildare jerseys, wanting to emulate names like Doyle and Earley. Clubs see their membership rise (especially in the commuter towns) and we get more young people playing football. More numbers -> more competition -> better standard -> net spread wider for potential county players in the future.

Most of the successful counties seem to make a far better fist of maintaining a healthy relationship between club and county. I'm sure it's not always perfect in Cork, Kerry, Dublin or Kilkenny but there doesn't seem to be half the amount of petty bickering that we get here in Kildare.

Ultimately the responsibility lies with the county board. We all know that one of the reasons the clubs voted the way they did two years ago was because they felt they were getting a raw deal from the county board. Access to county players is a big issue and it doesn't appear that lessons have been learned. The story about a Kildare minor being dropped from the panel because he got injured playing for his club is depressing to hear. Players just want to play football not have the fun of the game trained out of them.

The Hawkfield levy is a noose around the necks of Kildare clubs. Now they're expected to push this big raffle, which as was pointed out on here previously, has been shrouded in negativity due to the way it was launched. The county board need to urgently sort out whatever fractured relationship they have with Club Kildare and get their fundraising arm working. The clubs can't be expected to bail them out time and time again. The clubs have enough of a challenge financing their own activities.

The culture of Kildare club football urgently needs to change too. There's a rotten quick-fix attitude that prevails across much of the Kildare club scene. Clubs should be pumping money into their underage and not throwing good money after bad at "big name" managers. If every club was to prioritise their youth development and scale back on "expenses/mileage" to these mercenaries they would be far better off in the long term. We would have more young footballers coming through and we would also start to produce a greater pool of native managers/coaches and all that knowledge would remain in the county.

Get the club scene right and eventually the county team will reap the rewards. Kildare hurling has improved off the back of the hard work done at underage level in clubs like Celbridge, Confey, Naas, Coill Dubh and Clane promoting the game and nurturing young players. If you were to say 5 years ago that the Kildare hurlers would be targeting Liam McCarthy status you would have been put in a loony bin. Now it's a realistic and achievable target in the next few years. This progress was made despite only the bare minimum of county board support and those clubs deserve huge credit for their work. Surely the 40 or so football clubs can do similar for the big ball.

HUGE PLUS ONE!

The club is the foundation and the county team build on that. Clubs have to be respected a lot more and the players need to be let out of the county set-up a lot more.
I honestly think that during our league debacle the lads would have been well served to be let go back to their clubs more often and just play with the shackles off.
And I´m blue in the face saying how we don`t run things like the counties mentioned by KK ie allow players get hard club matches under their belts as opposed to crap challange games or even worse training session after training session.
That is a huge gripe when you have lads getting no ball and who just train and train. Even those mentioning Kelly re his injury being a result of playing so much football. In reality he was being overtrained.

The clubs need to pull together and no aul shite. 2016 is a huge year already.

In the list above by Baba most of the clubs who voted against McGeeney were the ones with county players. There was no doubt that the unavailability of players to the clubs was a major bone of contention between the clubs and the manager.
I honestly believe that if the manager had been a little more diplomatic in his dealings with the clubs he would still be in position today. It would also have been beneficial to the county team in my opinion if he had let players play more club games and spend less time marking the same players every night in training games.
A lot of Kildare players seem to play like athletes rather than footballers with a love of skill and improvisation. The defeats at minor and U21 in 2013 seemed to confirm the belief that we don't put enough emphasis on coaching skilful football and allowing our players to play that way as much as possible.
The most skilful and influential footballer for Galway in that U21 game was Shane Walsh, the most influential one for Roscommon in the minor game was Diarmuid Murtagh. The skill hasn't been coached out of them at senior on the evidence of the last weekend.

Hard to blame a club for voting against Mcgeeney when he pulls players from senior league games after manager has named his team in dressingroom. Particularly when its for a junior challenge match against London two days later! Came back to bite him unfortunately.Would be good move to bring in Glenn Ryan now as backs coach to work along with Ryan. Badly needed.

2012 - Meath and Cork split us open down the middle. McGeeney failed to rectify this.
2013 - McGeeney & Ryan - conceded 4 goals againstDublin, lucky it wasn't at least 7. We were fearing a route before that match. McGeeney got the chop in a distasteful way. Ryan was kept for continuity. A lot of players were physically ruined by the S&C of the previous years, bulking up when others were moving to leaner and faster.
2014 - Ryan tried to adopt man for man and play like Dublin/Mayo. Didn't fix defensive issues.
2015 - Implosion.

The defensive issues are there a long, long time. Ryan wasn't the man for the top level. McStay is not the answer. No other county is interested for some reason. Remove Ryan and we might get a change in attitude from the players.

Looks like Jason is not going to be sacked tonight:
http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/gaelic-football/kildare-board-set-to-resist-pressure-to-sack-jason-ryan-31122647.html

Would hope (but not expect) that at least there might be an open and honest discussion about the state of the senior team at the county board meeting. Problems that haven't been rectified in the last 15 months are not going to get magically rectified in the next 9 weeks. The coaching and tactical abilities required to turn things around have been proven not to be there. Add a championship debacle to this years league and the county board will be in trouble when they go looking for a new sponsor or look for Brady's to renew at the end of the year.

As many Clubs voted to keep McGeeney as let him go, that seems to be lost. The casting votes that sent us into this spiral downwards were by Members of the board. Those same members are still there. Not once have they been asked to explain their decision or challenged to justify what they done at a monthly or annual meeting.
A Club is perfectly entitled to vote whatever way it wants, a board member is not. A member who voted against the board's wishes should have been removed from said board forthwith. Instead in Kildare we let them stay and the open wound continues to fester.

Not getting rid of Ryan tonight will show a distinct lack of leadership and forward thinking. Two things we all hoped the new Chairman would bring.

As I aid on another thread I'm sick of it all, they are all as bad as each other. If there was a frank discussion on it tonight then at least we might get some answers.

God knows what the sponsors are thinking.

On the Topic, imo He needs to be removed now, and give Murphy the Job for the rest of the Season, however short that may be.. at the moment, we wont beat Laois in Tullamore, and do we really want to ?, and then face being humiliated by the Dubs ?

One thing is for sure, we wont be on Setanta next Year, and it might be a very very dificult Job attracting a Company to give us Support.

Eh when is the County Board Meeting ?

Its a good discussion.  The CB probably need to have a discussion about it tonight with the clubs.  Just to get the general view that's out there and let off some steam.  They also should let the clubs know the position.  Support fro Ryan or not.  The CB as a whole certainly need to up their game in the running of the county that's for sure.


I for one think that Kildare are a division 2 team at best at the moment.  We should still be there.  How we lost to Down I do not know and we should of beaten Meath.  We probably deserved to be relegated because our performances did not reflect the quality of player we have. Its a bitter pill to swallow.  

We now need to freshen things up for the players.  The management team need to make the coming months training interesting, enjoyable and competitive.  They need to lay it out in such a way as to get the confidence back in the players before the first championship game.

We have all been there.  Every club in the county has been through the same thing.  (manager loosing the players or a bad run of results). I do not think Ryan will be replaced.  Its just not the done thing in GAA.  Weather we agree with it or not.  I was talking to a couple of the players on Sunday night and some of them were genuinely depressed and embarrassed.  

Now I do not want a barrage of criticism saying they should be embarrassed. Weather we think some of the players are good enough to be on the county team or not they all put in a serious effort.  And at the end of the day I would thing the best players in the county are all on the current panel.  I just hope that the players will respond in a positive way as we can all see maybe Ryan is loosing the dressing room.  We all know there seems to be a lack of leaders so I am hoping that with some confidence restored that some lads will step up to the plate in the championship.

I will be there to support the players anyway and expect the good footballing people of Kildare to be there too.