Westmeath v Kildare

Cathal McNally is no more a corner forward than I am intercounty standard. And in my opinion he's not intercounty standard either.

The likes of Eanna O Connor, Ray Cahill, Smith must be looking on scratching their heads. All scoring forwards. Round pegs in square holes springs to mind.

No Doyle, Dan Flynn, Feely, Bolton, McGrillen either. 3 Moorefield men starting. Sunday will be interesting indeed.

Freddy tad harsh there, Doyle as per press during the week is in rehab. McGrillen and Smith just back from injury didn't play any OB cup. feely and Dan Flynn both missed Sigerson during the week with injuries!

Injury rehab!!

I make it 4 league debutants in Byrne, Houlihan, Tyrell and Neil Flynn. In the three games so far there have been changes to the team that was released so that could likely happen again. Hyland at midfield is an interesting one. He stood out for Athy there in the Autumn and there's an abrasiveness about him that Kildare have been missing around the middle recently. I personally thought Daryl looked well off the pace against Offaly but with Moolick, Dan Flynn and Feely all injured I can understand why he's in there.

McNally was probably Kildare's best forward from what I saw in the O'Byrne Cup although I would have liked to have seen more of Eanna O'Connor. Good to see Niall Kelly and Paul Cribbin starting and it's a great opportunity for Neil Flynn and Adam Tyrell to stake a claim for the months ahead.

Really interesting line up. Great to see N Flynn, Tyrell, Houlihan get a start.
Hyland midfield with Daryl - interesting also. Niall Kelly full forward - again something experimental and noteworthy. Think this is a good selection. I'm not a huge fan of McNally either but in fairness to the lad he's one of our most regular scorers from play and has pace to burn. He scored two points in each of te OBC games from play so if anything was our most consistent forward. I think his shooting let's him down too much to be a top class corner forward but he brings pace, energy, workrate.. The others mentioned above don't necessarily do that.

Really looking forward to this now.

Maybe Paul Cribbin would drop back to midfield and Hyland could play as an extra defender. The half-back line is inexperienced and could do with an extra player to help out.

Looking forward to seeing how Neil Flynn and Adam Tyrell do on their debuts at this level. I would still find a place for Padraig O'Neill. It's going to be tough to get a result in Mullingar with all those players unavailable.

kickingking wrote:

I make it 4 league debutants in Byrne, Houlihan, Tyrell and Neil Flynn. In the three games so far there have been changes to the team that was released so that could likely happen again. Hyland at midfield is an interesting one. He stood out for Athy there in the Autumn and there's an abrasiveness about him that Kildare have been missing around the middle recently. I personally thought Daryl looked well off the pace against Offaly but with Moolick, Dan Flynn and Feely all injured I can understand why he's in there.

McNally was probably Kildare's best forward from what I saw in the O'Byrne Cup although I would have liked to have seen more of Eanna O'Connor. Good to see Niall Kelly and Paul Cribbin starting and it's a great opportunity for Neil Flynn and Adam Tyrell to stake a claim for the months ahead.

I think Byrne played in the league before, not 100% sure. He definitely came on in the championship before anyway.

Agree with you about McNally, I thought he was one of the best in The O'Byrne Cup.

The midfield pairing interests me most. Wouldn't have expected either to be chosen there to be honest. Flynn didn't appear to be fully fit and assumed Hyland would be in the backs. It'll be interesting to see how it goes. Would expect Paul Cribbin to move into the middle at some stage.

Ye Byrne played in 2013 league but it prob his first start

Yep first league start I meant.

Given the guys that are unavailable I think that is a very good team selection, Tyrrell was the one player who showed something in O'Byrne cup that could be good addition to the team, McNally always gives huge workrate and is very effective although his shouting can sometimes let him down, but well deserves his place imo, and with neil Flynn, niall Kelly and oflaherty I like the look of that forward line, Daryl Flynn should be in better shape than he was v Offaly, hopefully he can get a good run injury free

Happy enough with that team apart from Midfield which concerns me looking at the pairing. With all due respect to Daryl I haven't seen him playing well consistently in quite a few years now. It's a huge ask to see him get back back up to the pace of the game at this stage of his career with the injuries he has had. Can't see it happening but obviously hope I'm wrong.
Will be interested and excited to see some of the newer recruits get their chance. Think Johnny Byrne could be a god player for us over the coming years

Freddy Krueger wrote:

Cathal McNally is no more a corner forward than I am intercounty standard.

He most certainly is a corner forward, played a heap of football there for JTB. Whether he's an inter-county standard one is another matter.

Ohtoohtobe wrote:

Freddy Krueger wrote:

Cathal McNally is no more a corner forward than I am intercounty standard.

He most certainly is a corner forward, played a heap of football there for JTB. Whether he's an inter-county standard one is another matter.

Just because he plays there for hia club doesn't make him a corner forward. He has only one foot. He's scoring return I'd awful for chances he gets indicating his finishing is simply not good enough .

I've seen enough of him at all levels at this stage. Fantastically fit and a real athlete. That he should be commended on.

The other thing is that there's a strong chance he won't be playing there. Seems logical that Flynn and Kelly will be inside, Cathsy on wing, Cribbin midfield and Hyland some kind of extra back. We'll find out Sunday I suppose.

*If* its the team that lines out I can see Flynn acting as a defensive pivot with Cribbin & Hyland as attacking midfielders.

Leaves 5 up front with no real fixed abode giving Kelly room to find space

He did play there v Offaly and was the only one of the three inside men who were able to get out in front and win their own ball, causing the BIFFO's more problems than the other two put together. If only his shooting was more consistent..

Don't think there was many more options for us at the moment. Must be a long time since we started without one of Leper, O'Neill or Bolton.

I hope that Cian has emphasised the need to tackle properly instead of the lazy efforts we have watched for years now as that full back line will be worth anything up to 8 points from frees.

Half back line looks a gamble on paper but I think they may get a sweeper behind them looking at Hyland in midfield.

I'm surprised Eanna O' Connor did not get a run but he may come on. Good to see fresh players getting a chance.
Niall Kelly back gives us a cutting edge.

Looking forward to Sunday for the first time in a while. If we can knick a win we will be set up.

We wanted to see new players in and we got them. We also wanted to see a different set up and we may have that too going on the team selected.
McNally is like McCreery in that he gets into great scoring positions but his score rate is very poor. Hopefully Cian has worked on that aspect of his game. I would be more worried about Flynn in midfield as he has looked way of the pace there in recent years. Hard to belive it will soon be 5 years to his wonderful display against Donnegal in the Q/F. Injuries have taken their toll on him since.
A win would be a huge boost but as Rex said we have to tackle properly to have any chance.

I would be happy enough with that selection we needed to fresh it up a bit hopefully we will have some sort of game plan in place also have a plan B if things are not going our way. Its good to see that we have options on the free taking with Eoghan & Neil Flynn on the left side and Tyrrell on the right at this time of the year converting your frees is important. What really surprises me that there are no Sarsfields players on the team also going on the last few years the lack of Sarsfields & Moorefield players who more or less dominated the club scene getting the chance.

Interesting team. I agree hylo will probably drop back with Paul and cathal moving out.
It's not the biggest intercounty team I've seen.

What's the story with our captain. . Injured ??

Agree with murof, great to see new faces in the team, it's what we have been asking for. At least with McNally we know we will get 100% out of him. Iv seen Holland play midfield a few times and he's impressed me every time. He may need to put on size to play there though ( maybe he has put on a few kgs over winter).

Matt Holland's declared for us Celbridgelad? - lol . Definitely would need to have bulked up a bit.

To the earlier question yes Eoin Doyle is recovering from injury.

Spellcheck my bad

Matt was a good midfielder for Ireland back in the day that goal against Cameroon was special!!

Obviously Neil Flynn is on the panel but is Chris Healy on it yet? Or will he be brought in after the 21s. Supposed to of played very well in the sigerson during the week