Kildare v Offaly

In the long term, Fogarty should be the full forward but he is trying to get over an injury at the moment.

Delighted to see Kevin Feely starting - feared we'd never see him in the white again. Would make you long to have Paddy Brophy and Sean Hurley back as well but such is life.

From a tactical view point, O'Neill is playing quite an attacking game, which is great to see. I wouldn't class myself as a purist in terms of how the game is played but in general I love to see an attacking style. In fairness we should be well able to go toe to toe with the teams in this division.

If we're fortunate to make the latter stages of the championship and we play the Dublins and Kerrys again, I think we should definitely adopt a more defensive, counter-attacking style. But it's good to see us being so positive at the moment.

Interesting with callaghan starting, outgoing captain . And his clubmate the new captain.. and hasn't kicked a ball yet.

Is it Seamus? Eoin is injured so he can't play and Eamon isn't injury so he can play....

Is eoin injury long term jim ?

Would have left niall kelly on the edge of the square. Our most potent forward.

I'm not sure on Eoin to be honest. Nial is our best forward no doubt but will get as many scores from 11 as he would at 14 as he gets a bit more freedom and space at 11

Yes the Doyle injury is long-term - probably the middle or even end of the league before we see him.

A great thing about Niall Kelly - one of the many - is his versatility. Like Alan Brogan, he can play inside or he can come out. Wouldn't surprise me if he and Callaghan switch a few times during the game.

Let's face it, Offaly aren't exactly Donegal so he should be in the thick of it no matter where he goes.

No harm in experimenting with a few things in the league. We probably haven't done enough of it in recent years and then been left scratching our heads as to why our bench looks weak and we lack different options when it comes to the championship. For all that Leper has declined he still provided a fairly good outlet last year particularly against Offaly and Longford and in the first half against Cork. The ball wasn't sticking inside in the second half last weekend. If Leper can win his fair share of ball he could help to bring Neil Flynn into the game.

I'm hoping that Flynn as well as Feely, Tyrrell, Houlihan (and O'Donoghue again) perform well tomorrow. We need these new guys to kick on.

Callaghan won't start the only change.

So who is in if Leper is out?

Hopefully we pick up another 2 points. Offaly will see it as a great opportunity to take a scalp. One half of me is thinking ah we'll be grand, then the other half is worried that if any of the players are thinking ah we be grand then we'll be beaten.

It is very attacking but I think if we are to do well in Div 3, as most of us believe we should, then we should go at teams and try to blow them away.
I like the notion of the likes of Paidi or Daryl on the bench to settle or close out games a bit. They may not have pace but their experience is still very valuable.
All whispers is that O'Neill doesn't let them have notions about where they are at and what is needed to get back up to a higher level.

Predicting a massacre. Kildare by double digits.

I hope your right Tommy. But I suppose you've a 50% chance of being right.

All sounds very nervous on kfm for the last few minutes. It feels like everybody expects it to go pear shaped at the end

A performance that went from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Some brilliant attacking play and when we got the goal, that was the time to really push on and put them on the rack. Instead, we took our foot off the pedal, let them back into it, and for the second week in a row, I'm sure many of us were having nightmarish flashbacks to Tyrone and Down.

Positives - first of all, Kevin Feely's display. I have always felt that if he got a sustained run in a Kildare jersey, he would prove himself to be one of the best young midfielders in the country and he was excellent today. Also, some of the attacking play was superb and it's good to see the young players driving the whole thing forward.

We have the three week break now and I'm sure O'Neill will be looking to seriously address the recurrent slumps when we're on top, because it's been afflicting Kildare for a few seasons now. In fairness, this is a young team and it's a work in progress.

But we have two wins from two and we're in a good position to push for promotion so a decent start overall.

Lots of positives. We won and eh.....we won. I'm sure there was more but I didn't see any.

Yes Jim - two wins from two, top of the division and a crop of promising young players coming through. It's time to disband the squad and opt out for the rest of the year. Don't bother visiting this forum anymore guys - it's a a waste of time. There's no hope, the Cian O'Neill era is over after two games. Bummer.

Jim if u couldn't see a positive in Feelys performance ur a hard man to please. Two long range points that I suspect were lobs into the square and a dubious penalty (from my position anyway) brought them in it. I thought other than the inside forwards we were ok. O Niell fairly let Ollie have it for the stupid reverse pass. Why did Cribben go off?

jim wrote:

Lots of positives. We won and eh.....we won. I'm sure there was more but I didn't see any.

Nah nothing else. Seeing as how we're overrun with midfielders, Feely's performance is nothing special. The other midfield options are well ahead of him, so no change there.

Same with Dan Flynn.

Cathal McNally didn't get stuck in and keep the head under pressure for the second week running, either.

And there's surely craftier forwards than Niall Kelly in the county who didn't have a good first half when he didn't kick four points.

And Eamon Callaghan is passed it. He didn't show today that he's still an option and, at the very least, worth his place in the panel. And Bolton didn't come on and start directing affairs immediately. He has no chance of being there in the summer.

So that's it lads, no hope at all.

And the next game in Pearse Park, a venue where we won by 30 points last year with Kildare's worst manager of modern times.

What are we going to do?! I still think we should disband the squad, there's no point in going on.

Jayus HG your very negative. Your correct with 2 wins and that's the most important thing. But I thought in general we were in poor. A couple of good passages of play in the first half. But this is Division 3 against Offaly. I'm not blaming Cian O Neill for a minute or any player in particular but my observation of that game today was poor. But I know I've some neck coming on to a forum and stating my opinion....

But for a very fortuitous penalty we might have done Tommy K's double digit win. It certainly looked like we would/could/should after our own goal. Heard Cian O'Neill on KFM saying that was one of the problems he/they need to address - not putting the pedal to the metal all the way. But, like the little girl with the little curl, when we were good, we were good and when we were bad (as in some sloppy passing which might, in Ollie's case, have cost us a goal) we were tending towards horrid. But there were many, many positives and even when they pulled it back to 3 I never felt like there was going to be another Down about it. Onward, ever onward ... Early days for the squad and 4 from 4 is very pleasing ....

Hugely impressed with O'Neill hauling Lyons off after that rush of blood to the head. Tough on Ollie but O'Neill knows the standards required and hopefully that will be a lesson learned.

What a debut from Feely  -  he won a serious amount of possession, demanded the ball at all times and was instrumental in some seriously good moves with his passing in the first half in particular. Link up with players he played with at under age level was particularly good.

Repeat of the WM match in many ways and if McNamee had his scoring boots on instead of hitting 3 successive wife's we could have had a daylight robbery situation.

These fade-outs need to be addressed but at least we're putting ourselves in a position in the first place.

Happy enough after 2 games in atrocious conditions.

Oops that's some typo in line about McNamee !! Meant wides of course..

Kevin Feeley, first senior game and he ran the show. Catching balls out of the sky, kick a beautiful point was directing lads where he wanted them to go, some brilliant passes. What we all hoped he could do. Very exciting to see how he goes when he gets a few games. MOTM

We could have took them to the cleaners but the old traits of poor concentration and sloppy play allowed them to gain a little momentum. Ref gave a penalty for God knows what. Looked like the Offaly lad fell over. 
We need an attitude of "no mercy". Eight points up and we should have buried them.

Two points anyway, and Kevin Feeley back in white. Happy days.