Westmeath v Kildare

Decent mix of that team and I must say I was impressed with Hyland in the middle as a runner. The lad can cover the turf and he has an inclination for defence. Cian O'Sullivan would be a level up but he could perform a similar role.
As for Daryl Flynn he is a total dog of a player, and I mean that in the best way possible, and perhaps a break from inter-county intensity might freshen him up.
Re McNally he is one of the lads who will burst their hole and never please many people. Lots of lads with bigger reputations haven't delivered on numerous occasions but you know what you get with him.
I imagine he will drift out as I really want to see Niall Kelly in the scoring zone.

Flamingo, agree 100% particularly re Flynn. That night against Donegal one was one of the best performances from a Kildare man I've seen. He was Darragh O'Se esque. If he could have avoided injury and maintained that form for another few years we'd be talking of him in the same breadth as he likes of McCreery and Dermot.
if he is free of injury now it would be worth persisting with him over a league campaign to allow him find some form and mayn't he sharpness in the hope that he could reach the same heights.

Flamingo, agree 100% particularly re Flynn. That night against Donegal one was one of the best performances from a Kildare man I've seen. He was Darragh O'Se esque. If he could have avoided injury and maintained that form for another few years we'd be talking of him in the same breadth as he likes of McCreery and Dermot.
if he is free of injury now it would be worth persisting with him over a league campaign to allow him find some form and mayn't he sharpness in the hope that he could reach the same heights.

On the game itself Westmeath will be out to build on their relatively successful year last year. They have some fine match winners of their own in Martin and Heslin.

I think given the team selection and the new blood this could be a tough day at the office for us. WM will certainly hold no fear in playing us in their back yard.

Very hard to call. Could easily be a draw game , equally would not be surprised if WM snook it

It will be a tough game to win. A lot of people are saying we're too good for division 3 but it's going to test the character of the team to get out of this division. It will depend on the attitude of the lads. If their willing to work hard as a team then I think there have a great chance.
I wish them best of luck.

Agree with Jim. This effort of saying we shouldn't be in Div 3 is a joke. We are there because until we PROVE otherwise that's our level.
The players need to get ready to battle this year.

Very good article on the kildaregaa365 site about the match tomorrow:
http://kildaregaa365.com/index.php/park-the-bus-cian/

Our defending certainly has to improve. I'd be happy if we could grind out an ugly 8-7 win tomorrow!

See the IT today setting Kildare up with the following "Kildare have selected a strong full strength team "

Obviously they never heard of lads like Hugh McGrillen,Emmet Bolton,Eoin Doyle,Kevin Murnaghan, Keith Cribbin, Tommy Moolick, Kevin Feely, Daniel Flynn, Alan Smith, Eamonn Callaghan, Pàdraig O' Neill.

Just hoping ye get a good result but fear the worst with the long "missing list".

Heard there are Two changes for tomorrow
Kevin Feely and Daniel Flynn at midfield and Hyland is starting wing back instead of Houlihan

Westmeath (FL v Kildare) – D Quinn; F Boyle, A Stone, K Maguire; D Lynch, P Holloway, J Dolan; D Corroon, S Flanagan; G Egan, P Sharry, K Martin; J Connellan, J Heslin, S Dempsey.
Those 2 players in the forwards would make me uneasy judged on what I saw them do against Meath last year. Hope our defense is a lot better than in recent years.

I count 11 players from Westmeath's Leinster final team last year so they're closer to full strength than us. And they beat us in Newbridge last year. We have a new half-back line and midfield so when you add it all up I wouldn't be surprised to see us losing.

Just hope people remember this is the hardest game (on paper) of our league fixtures and the first game in a project that we need to be patient with for about three years.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/kildare-and-westmeath-to-rise-again-county-by-county-guide-to-div-3-of-the-allianz-nfl-378971.html

Here's the Examiner's Division 3 preview. Nearly spat my tea all over the keyboard when I saw Dowling named as one of our two players "on the rise". No disrespect to Fionn, I wouldn't think he'd even name himself as one of Kildare's two most promising players. Where some journalists get their info from, I don't know. Do they pick names at random?

First things first. Good win and that the most important thing. Condictions were very poor but I thought it was a poor enough game but it's the start we all wanted.

Some encouraging performances in poor conditions, game should have been put to bed earlier in the second half - P Kelly, Hyland, N Kelly and MOTM Dan Flynn all impressed. I'd deffo give Hyland a chance at 3 again.

Awful conditions for a game. A win is all that matters in those conditions.
Felt we done enough without ever over exerting ourselves or pushing on when we were in control and turning the screw.
When we're 3 points up in the dying minutes I had flashbacks of the last 2 league campaigns and feared an ambush but we held out and Kelly got the insurance score.

2 points and campaign up and running. Home to the biffos next. 2 points is a must before the 3 week break where we can work on getting lads back and rectifying problems from first 2 games.

Dan Flynn take a bow, must have started that run inside his own half.

Poor enough game, but a wins a win and it's probably the toughest game we could have had to start the campaign with.

Few positives, few negatives, if Westmeath hadn't decided to start trying to walk the ball in with 20 minutes to go it could have ended differently.

Nice to have 2 points on the board though and Tipp and Limerick drawing is a nice bonus.

Great to get the win in difficult conditions. Everyone would have taken 2 points above anything else. Performances on the 31st of January don't mean much but points do.

Standout players for me were Niall Kelly, Dan Flynn and I thought Daryl Flynn got through a lot of hard work to make life tough for Westmeath. His physicality was missed when he went off I thought.

Nice to see a couple of goals and lads going looking for them instead of the easy point.

Negatives; only scored three points with the wind in the second half. Had Westmeath over a barrel, but as has been a problem over the last while, we did not push our advantage home.

My pet hate of allowing teams to stay in games by giving away cheap frees was once again in evidence. Six points from frees in the first half alone.

Offaly next in Newbridge and a chance to push on. A win would set us up well for a promotion push.

Thought Hyland was excellent and showed his versatility - picked at midfield, started wing back on Martin and moved to full back on Heslin. Good to see him back and hope he'll push on now and cement a place. Thought the defence did pretty well actually despite the free concession count. At least the fouls were generally further out the field today and not the fault of the full back line. On any other day those frees wouldn't result in points.

Some saying Dan Flynn man of the match and mentions for Daryl also - and yet we were almost cleaned out at midfield. That's probably as much down to an inability to win breaking ball by the half forward line in particular. I thought Cribbin in particular had a real off-day and O'Flaherty wasn't really "at it" either. We badly need Moolick back around the middle.

A poor enough game but as Rex said the conditions were very difficult. I think O'Neill will take the 2 points any day.

Well done to the lads, a good win, two cracking goals, A disappointing return with the strong wind in the second half, we overhit a lot of balls into the forward line, Westmeath had lots of possession but I thought that we defended quite well.
Lots to work on but a very important 2 points in the bag, Niall Kelly was very good, I thought Dan Flynn and Hyland did well also. Agree we need Moolick back as we struggled to win possession at mf

Hopefully continues over awfully,next Sunday,a hammering be nice

Moolick is a big loss, was very noticeable today. I thought we tried to force it in second half. A Lot of poor balls were kicked in. McNally played well bar one poor miss toward the end of the game. Neil Flynn never really got into the game but it was good to see him out there. Cribben and o flaherty were very quiet. Dan Flynn goal was one of the best Iv ever seen, despite the soft Westmeath defending. I thought The referee was very poor for both sides

Great start to the campaign and nice way to kick off the new era. Listening to Tom Cribben's guff after the match (although he is a right lad to be fair), it made me so thankful (again) that Jason Ryan is no longer our manager. Honestly, I was popping the champagne corks when he got the boot last year.

Would echo the above comments about Hyland, who I've always rated highly. Come the summer, Kelly / Fitzpatrick / Hyland would be my idea of a good full back line. All dirty underhand operators who won't miss a chance to nail a forward if it presents itself - Kildare full back lines have been way to hospitable for too long, probably since Mac Lochlainn blew the scene.

Looking at midfield, in the long run I think Moolick / Feely is the partnership, although Flynn x 2 is not a bad pairing in the meantime. Daryl nearly a killed a guy and Daniel's goals was a moment of genius, he's a brilliant player. When you look at him, Niall Kelly, young O'Donoghue and the rest, I do think we're best positioned to challenge Dublin in Leinster over the next few years.

The quality of young player we're producing is a long way ahead of Meath and, tactically, O'Dowd, Cribben, Lillis and the rest are fairly hopeless. So, yes, a long way from the top table and all the other boring stuff, but a good start.

Offaly next week. Looking at the quality of the respective squads, if we play to our potential, we should annihilate them and have Eugene McGee choking on his dinner. Hopefully we will.

Also just to say - liked the way Cian O'Neill kept the old stagers in reserve and put his trust in youth. It was a statement that he wants to build a new and winning Kildare team, another positive.

What's the prognosis on Kevin Feely's injury?

I didn't see it but apparently he was walking around with his head wrapped in bandages? Seems like he fairly milled himself out of it in accident of some sort. Maybe next week might be too soon but hopefully back for round 3.