Kildare v Laois

I think we can Crofter, I think it is only at round 4 and quarter finals that repeat pairings are avoided so we can draw them in either round two or round 3.

If we do draw them again we are guaranteed home advantage though.

Ok thanks TC

We were here this time last year after Louth, so I am in no way not getting carried away after Saturday. We were good to very good in places and poor in large parts. Laois could and should have had a couple of first half goals which would have put us in serious trouble. Their half backs caused us untold problems and they were doing damage at midfield.

Some of our scores were very good, although the kicker was not under any pressure and we worked hard.

Dublin next which we all know could turn nasty very quickly. It's in this game where Ryan earns his corn, the Laois game was just window dressing.

Definitely the players and management deserve credit. They won a game comfortably that initially, they were expected to lose but nobody thinks that's good enough to beat Dublin, who would score a lot of goals I think. My hope is Kildare park all the buses and make it a stinker to watch and have Jarlath Burns and Joe Brolly tweeting about the death of football again.

There's no point talking about being beaten in direct aerial combat - long kickouts. It's just going to happen when you don't have the men to contend in that sector. Again though, overall, Kildare did very well in terms of winning possession from kickouts so I'd credit management and players for that too.

Against Dublin, the players will go out to try to win but I would be absolutely delighted with losing by 10 points or so, just avoid 20... move on then to games you can target once more. Because while you can't measure confidence and morale, there is no doubting its significance and you'd have to think that is much better now in the Kildare camp than it was last Saturday week at 7pm.

You definitely need the two Kellys, Moolick and Doyle back so you have a stronger 22 to use. Great to see Doyle getting 35 minutes. It was probably more comfortable than he expected but will be great for the legs. Would imagine he'll start the next day. Hard to see Peter Kelly having enough done. Moolick might be an option in two weeks. Niall Kelly with every touch looks just class. The way we probably should set up against Dublin might not suit him.

In short, I'm not looking forward to the Dublin game but there is some more positivity about what might come afterwards - though the immediate aftermath won't be pretty I'd imagine!

Anyway, I think the supporters are entitled to enjoy Saturday night for another few days. That start to the second half reminded me a little of this.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30xUl_vY6co

Great to get the win, and I for one, thoroughly enjoyed the game.

Our next outing will be a different challenge, which is summed up by Paddy Power giving odds of 1/33 for a dub win, Kildare at 12/1 and 33/1 for the draw.

Ogie wrote:

Anyway, I think the supporters are entitled to enjoy Saturday night for another few days. That start to the second half reminded me a little of this.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30xUl_vY6co

Now THAT got the blood coursing Ogie. Thanks for posting

Any Day we beat Laois is a good Day, and credit to all involved.

The Lads really upped it in the 2nd Half, and in fairness to the Lads, that I and others had being critical of, and called for to be dropped even, really stood out, Paudie, Leper and McNally.

Dublin now with a bit more confidence ?, ah not really, and I think the odds show that, and shur we probably shouldnt turn up.. but then again, what have we to lose, maybe we will catch them on an off Day, like Meath did a few Years ago

Bit dissapointed in the attendance, but hopefully that will change for the next Day, erpecially with the Minors playing also (as I suggested might happen in previous Post)

SeamusMurphy wrote:

Any Day we beat Laois is a good Day, and credit to all involved.

The Lads really upped it in the 2nd Half, and in fairness to the Lads, that I and others had being critical of, and called for to be dropped even, really stood out, Paudie, Leper and McNally.

Dublin now with a bit more confidence ?, ah not really, and I think the odds show that, and shur we probably shouldnt turn up.. but then again, what have we to lose, maybe we will catch them on an off Day, like Meath did a few Years ago

Bit dissapointed in the attendance, but hopefully that will change for the next Day, erpecially with the Minors playing also (as I suggested might happen in previous Post)

I reckon it's a great one for the players. Nothing to lose as Dermot said with a hint of a smile. You get milled, people expected it, you make it competitive, you get great kudos, you win and the county will close down! You want to match yourself as a footballer against the elite. It's where you learn best. I don't think even a bad beating would have a very bad effect. The big issue is six-day turnaround but as long as you don't pick up injuries, once morale is okay, that's not a problem. The six-day turnaround generally effects team losing provincial finals with that turnaround. Kildare did seven days this week.
Dermot reckons they'll set up like they did in the second half but I think Dublin would be more adept at hitting their inside men than Laois were. I'd still go for parking the bus. I think it does work and has worked. It's just not entertaining but that's not the primary job or responsibility.

It depends on what you consider working Ogie? Donegal lost when they merely parked the bus in 2011 but won last year when getting the balance right between defense and attack. I don't think we can beat Dublin either way so parking the bus should stop us getting hammered!! Letting Dublin run at us with the pace they have could be a dangerous tactic too. O Carroll and Donagher caused us a lot of problems last Saturday when our wing backs dropped off to cover the full back line. Flynn and Connolly are a far better tandem than the two Laois lads and could cause no end of damage if we give them the same room as the Laois wing forwards got.

First of all, kudos to management and players. Before the first game I thought Laois would win, I thought Kildare were in with a decent chance Saturday but I was shocked - there's no other word for it - by the quality of some of the football we played in the second half. I think if we're being honest, there was a freakish quality to it, because there was no indication of it during the league. Anyway, some pride was restored and that's all you could ask for really.

And now - because it wouldn't be one of my posts without it etc - a criticism of the management. I think it's fairly obvious that when it comes to Dublin, we can't go toe to toe with them. We don't have the style and finesse of Kerry or the power and pace of Mayo. Last year, Donegal offered a template as to how a team like Kildare might compete with or even - gasp - beat Dublin (believe it or not when I was a teenager I actually EXPECTED this - and guess what, it happened).

Anyway, I would have expected any manager worth his salt to toil day and night for Kildare to perfect a similar system, maybe even with - more gasping - some innovations. Regardless, coming out of the first couple of league games this year, I realised that whatever the management and squad had spent the winter doing, it wasn't that.

I watched Donegal again yesterday and my god, they are an awesome unit, one of the finest sides of recent years. Although they have a couple of truly exceptional forwards in Murphy and McFadden, I don't think they're doing something that Kildare couldn't realistically aspire to (apart from the loss to Dublin, the toughest game they had in McGuinness's first two years was against us).

But as we know, there is but two weeks to prepare and that ship has sailed. And to be fair, there is a much larger issue here about Kildare football, the structures and how we appoint managers. Leaving that aside, how do I think J Ryan should approach the next day? I think we should do something that is a bit anathema to Kildare teams - let's not make it accommodating for them and allow them to walk all over us. Go defensive, get in their faces and hit them hard. Do everything possible to disrupt their rhythm. Make sure that afterwards, they're broken, bruised and questioning themselves.

After that, regroup, push hard in the qualifiers, maybe make a quarter final and give ourselves a platform for next year (and unless we beat Dublin, Jason Ryan should not be in charge).

By the way, I've been to see our minor team this year, they have some fine players. Outside of Dublin, we're producing the best young footballers in Leinster at present. Unlike the senior team, they have a realistic chance of winning on the day. Just want to encourage everyone to get out early and support them, they're the future. And  believe me, with the right man / men in charge, it's bright.

When Donegal beat Dublin last year it wasn't just a defensive strategy that won it for them, it was just as much about an attacking strategy when the blitzed Dublin for 3 goals and shell shocked them.
We need to concentrate on how we can hurt Dublin equally as much as how to defend against them.
Donegal had a vey simple tactic last year, They placed Gallagher at centre forward where he had a big physical advantage, and kicked every kick out long to him on the opposition 45, where he broke it to McHugh and other players breaking from the back. All of a sudden Donegal had players overlapping and running in on an out numbered Dublin defence. I think we should look at something similar, such as Moolick at cf to win possession far down the field and have runners going forward onto the breaking ball, because otherwise if we use the short kickout strategy (that worked well against Laois) Dublin will devour us as they did to Cork in the league final when Cork used a short kickout and the Dublin forwards hounded the Cork backs into the ground.

Having spoken to players in the Donegal camp - I had quite a long conversation with one of them one afternoon in 2012 - believe me, it's not a system you master in a fortnight. It took Donegal a year to get to grips with it, and they refined it in the second year.

It's a damage limitation exercise for Kildare - that's the price you pay for a wasted league campaign I'm afraid. Also why Jason Ryan should not be in charge next year.

“Longford are a Division 3 team and we’re a Division 3 team, you saw what Dublin did to Longford a few weeks ago,” the Kildare manager said in the Irish Daily Star.

Good lad Jason, managed to get a win under your belt and then revert to type.

Is it any wonder people in the county have stopped watching the team with this lad doing the PR.

Makes you want to look for the nearest bus to launch yourself under, God knows what the players think.

Bad News Baba wrote:

“Longford are a Division 3 team and we’re a Division 3 team, you saw what Dublin did to Longford a few weeks ago,” the Kildare manager said in the Irish Daily Star.

Good lad Jason, managed to get a win under your belt and then revert to type.

Is it any wonder people in the county have stopped watching the team with this lad doing the PR.

Makes you want to look for the nearest bus to launch yourself under, God knows what the players think.

He's taking all the pressure off his players.

bag of white wrote:

Bad News Baba wrote:

“Longford are a Division 3 team and we’re a Division 3 team, you saw what Dublin did to Longford a few weeks ago,” the Kildare manager said in the Irish Daily Star.

Good lad Jason, managed to get a win under your belt and then revert to type.

Is it any wonder people in the county have stopped watching the team with this lad doing the PR.

Makes you want to look for the nearest bus to launch yourself under, God knows what the players think.

He's taking all the pressure off his players.

Yeah - pretty obvious that he is trying to manage the hype and put the victory into perspective for those on the outside looking in - the message will be probably different inside the camp..

topcat wrote:

It depends on what you consider working Ogie? Donegal lost when they merely parked the bus in 2011 but won last year when getting the balance right between defense and attack. I don't think we can beat Dublin either way so parking the bus should stop us getting hammered!! Letting Dublin run at us with the pace they have could be a dangerous tactic too. O Carroll and Donagher caused us a lot of problems last Saturday when our wing backs dropped off to cover the full back line. Flynn and Connolly are a far better tandem than the two Laois lads and could cause no end of damage if we give them the same room as the Laois wing forwards got.

That's what I'd consider working TC.

I honestly don't know what strategy will best suit us for this bar taking out the rosary beads! No matter what we do there will be people saying we should have gone the other way on Monday morning:

Go all out defensive and you're asking for trouble. Invite them onto you and you're asking for trouble. Push up on them and you're asking for trouble. Go man for man and you're asking for trouble etc.

Whatever way we go we have to find a way which suits the players we have at our disposal. Kildare play their best football when the ball is moved at pace and we can create overlaps putting strong runners like Cribbin, McNally, Bolton, Leper, Doyle and Lyons into space. We saw that to good effect at times on Saturday. I don't envy Ryan trying to find a way to achieve this against far superior opposition to Laois.

We've nothing to lose here and if this game is anyway competitive for 50 or 60 minutes we'll probably come out of it with great credit. Kildare simply have to play with manic intensity or else it could get ugly. Every man will have to work like a demon and we have to hound Dublin at every opportunity and look to expose any cockiness in their game. It's nigh on impossible to do that for a full 70 minutes but at least we saw in the second half on Saturday that Kildare are still capable of playing at a high intensity because we hadn't seen it for a while.

I dunno we tried all-out defence against them in the league in 2013 and it was a disaster. We were so bad at it that Ciaran Kilkenny kicked a ball to himself at one stage for a point.

If you look at Mayo and Dublin games, they push up in full on the Dublin kick-out and get some joy out of it. That's also what we did in the second half last Saturday and it paid dividends. It doesn't mean you necessarily go one-on-one at the back but if/when they do win their own kick-outs you have to get fouls in to give yourself time to regroup.

Someone who wasn't at the match was asking earlier what changed tactically in Tullamore on Saturday. To my eyes we had a half-back dropping to screen in front of Kingston in the first half and that worked ok in limiting him but the wing-forwards, Donoher and O'Carroll, seemed to have more space to run riot and scored 0-6 from play between them.

In the second half I thought we pushed up for their kick-outs and got immediate joy with Smithy intercepting one. We still had Murno sweeping when they came forward and he won an amount of ball. Laois' work-rate dropped from not great to zero (as highlighted by Ciaran Whelan on The Sunday Game) so while it was great football from us and enjoyable to watch it comes with a major asterisk.

It's funny watching the knee-jerk brigade on here preparing to tip-toe away from their six months of internet abuse of players and management, but not so far that they can't revert to type after the Dublin game.

Unfortunately I think we'll get a serious trimming in that game. I think we're very gradually improving but still an ocean off them and no formation or game plan will change that. Like, if we can't deal with Evan O'Caroll and Brendan Quigley running at us, we may forget about stopping the likes of McCaffrey, McCarthy, Flynn, Connolly, McManamon etc.

The nutjobs will go nuts after that game.

For me, the situation is at it always was: a coach who's nothing special but not the idiot he's made out to be here trying to make progress with a very raw team, many of whom are just starting to find their feet at inter-county level. Whether Jason Ryan, Cian O'Neill or the Dalai Lama are in charge next year, it will take time. We won't be winning anything for a fair while. In the meantime you have to enjoy the good days in the knowledge there'll be plenty of bad ones. With that in mind I thoroughly enjoyed being home for the last two games and leapt about four foot off the terrace when Leper scored that goal, considering the smart-arsed abuse he's been getting from some of his own people.

I won't over-react, good or bad, to the Dublin game and instead as I've always said will look at the season as a whole once it's over.

That might be a bit boring but it saves me doing my back in by doing a 180-degree turn after every result.

I think Dermot Earley hit the nail on the head the other night on the Sunday Game. He said too defensive is problematic likewise go man for man "we will be destroyed". He said the balance between the two is the way to go and more specifically that second half of football we played on Saturday.

I feel our full back line is still suspect. Yes the threat of Kingston and Co was removed but they cut us open on numerous occasions. This and midfield. Laois lorded it there and this will not be acceptable in two weeks time. We saw the potential we can achieve in playing direct ball into the forwards as opposed to recycling the ball around in a circle and getting nowhere, characteristic of almost every game involving kildare this season. A mammoth improvement is needed for us in all sectors of the field to be able to match Dublin - at least give them a competitive game.

I see the spread with PP is 11 Points.

I find it interesting that some say that we are a Team in transition.. While some are still learning their trade at Senior level, the majority are very seasoned and experienced Players.

It was interesting to hear some of the comments around the Donegal Team before and after their demolition of Armagh.. that basically its the same bunch of Players now, that a few Years ago couldnt win a Match in Ulster, let alone be fancied for an AI.. It just shows what can be achieved.

lilywhites on tour wrote:

I think Dermot Earley hit the nail on the head the other night on the Sunday Game. He said too defensive is problematic likewise go man for man "we will be destroyed". He said the balance between the two is the way to go and more specifically that second half of football we played on Saturday.

I feel our full back line is still suspect. Yes the threat of Kingston and Co was removed but they cut us open on numerous occasions. This and midfield. Laois lorded it there and this will not be acceptable in two weeks time. We saw the potential we can achieve in playing direct ball into the forwards as opposed to recycling the ball around in a circle and getting nowhere, characteristic of almost every game involving kildare this season. A mammoth improvement is needed for us in all sectors of the field to be able to match Dublin - at least give them a competitive game.

Who in the full back line is suspect? Was it not the runners coming through that caused the damage like Donoher, O'Carroll and O'Loughlin?

Most defenders in the country, never mind just in Kildare, are vulnerable when they're left one on one without protection. We saw the perfect example of that last year against Meath in Croke Park when there was 50 yards of space in front of our full back line. Our full backs will do ok provided they have adequate cover in front of them.

Ohtoohtobe wrote:

I dunno we tried all-out defence against them in the league in 2013 and it was a disaster. We were so bad at it that Ciaran Kilkenny kicked a ball to himself at one stage for a point.

If you look at Mayo and Dublin games, they push up in full on the Dublin kick-out and get some joy out of it. That's also what we did in the second half last Saturday and it paid dividends. It doesn't mean you necessarily go one-on-one at the back but if/when they do win their own kick-outs you have to get fouls in to give yourself time to regroup.

Someone who wasn't at the match was asking earlier what changed tactically in Tullamore on Saturday. To my eyes we had a half-back dropping to screen in front of Kingston in the first half and that worked ok in limiting him but the wing-forwards, Donoher and O'Carroll, seemed to have more space to run riot and scored 0-6 from play between them.

In the second half I thought we pushed up for their kick-outs and got immediate joy with Smithy intercepting one. We still had Murno sweeping when they came forward and he won an amount of ball. Laois' work-rate dropped from not great to zero (as highlighted by Ciaran Whelan on The Sunday Game) so while it was great football from us and enjoyable to watch it comes with a major asterisk.

It's funny watching the knee-jerk brigade on here preparing to tip-toe away from their six months of internet abuse of players and management, but not so far that they can't revert to type after the Dublin game.

Unfortunately I think we'll get a serious trimming in that game. I think we're very gradually improving but still an ocean off them and no formation or game plan will change that. Like, if we can't deal with Evan O'Caroll and Brendan Quigley running at us, we may forget about stopping the likes of McCaffrey, McCarthy, Flynn, Connolly, McManamon etc.

The nutjobs will go nuts after that game.

For me, the situation is at it always was: a coach who's nothing special but not the idiot he's made out to be here trying to make progress with a very raw team, many of whom are just starting to find their feet at inter-county level. Whether Jason Ryan, Cian O'Neill or the Dalai Lama are in charge next year, it will take time. We won't be winning anything for a fair while. In the meantime you have to enjoy the good days in the knowledge there'll be plenty of bad ones. With that in mind I thoroughly enjoyed being home for the last two games and leapt about four foot off the terrace when Leper scored that goal, considering the smart-arsed abuse he's been getting from some of his own people.

I won't over-react, good or bad, to the Dublin game and instead as I've always said will look at the season as a whole once it's over.

That might be a bit boring but it saves me doing my back in by doing a 180-degree turn after every result.

A win over a poor Laois team won't change my mind about Ryan and if Dublin give us another heavy beating he deserves all the criticism he gets. The only nutjobs on here are the ones who have been banging the Ryan drum for a long time in the abject hope that somehow he turns good. It kills them he is a miserable failure and it festers that they were told it was going to go pear shaped before it did. Then the merest glimpse of some good and they cling onto it like limpets on rocks.

As for Leper, he is like all the other players not immune from criticism. He has been poor for 18 months and deep down he he knows that himself I'm sure. Twenty minutes against Laois won't change that fact and certainly someone jumping four foot in the air won't.
If he follows Sunday up with a good display against Dublin that will tell us a lot. That goes to the vast majority of the squad in case you thought I was picking on him.