Kildare v westmeath

It will probably have costed 1/4 of a million to prepare us for yesterdays muck. Clubs up and down the county buying €100 tickets themselves and paying Hawkfield levy.

I have never seen a Kildare team as abject and heavy legged in all my years. We had a decent sprinkle of youth yesterday yet Ollie was the only one that looked anyway spritely.

I have to ask the question what are we doing in training . And it needs to be answered .

maybe its time managers get paid by there results that inclues club managers,players training 4 or 5 times a week,they get nothing back,managers driving inn with there sponsored jeeps and cars, players should start standing up 2 there county boards.he are being brain washed,

I was going to do a big long post but it wouldn't be a patch on Shergar's so I won't. Excellent analysis, agree with every line.

Was going to make the same point about us having hardly any players in the 25-30 age bracket. We are left to rely on 23 and 24 year olds and when it came down to it yesterday, they were outmuscled.

Totally agree that the players need to step up but as others have said they look uncomfortable. The likes of Bolton, Callaghan and the O'Flahertys were all on this panel back when things were going well around 2010. They aren't bad players. It seems they've lost their way and don't know how to handle this new defensive style. Management need to have a serious re-think as players didn't even look interested in fighting for the ball yesterday. You can tell they don't want this.

O'Neill is still in his first year and fair enough he tried to do something different but it's not working and if he keeps this up then this is what we're going to be faced with the foreseeable future. His interview after the match was bordering on ridiculous.

"In fairness to the boys, they showed great resilience, great character towards the end to turn a three point deficit into one." He's basically praising the fact that we scored two points in a row, and thats after letting a 6 point lead slip. If he genuinely believes that this is enough, we were just hard done by by the ref and can't see that the whole thing is falling apart before him then I just don't know where we go from here.

As a Liverpool supporter for longer than I care to mention, a manager using the word "character" sends me into a cold sweat.

We need leaders and have since J.D retired. No sign of anybody stepping up unfortunately, that includes this years captain.

Kildare played four games in Croke park in 12 months ,the opposition have scored. 15-71

When Jim McGuinness took over Donegal he got all the players on board with the structures he was going to implement how they were going to play etc. Yesterday and the Wexford game showed that the players dont believe in O Neill the management team or the structures he is trying to put into place. its either that or we dont have the players?

or we have a lot of players with bad attitudes

I think its a combination of a lot of different things but both players and management have to take responsibility

I don't know how we have managed it but we've become the first team to implement a blanket defense yet still don't get to lay a hand on the opposition player. If we are going down the road of using a blanket defense like most other teams we are boiling it down to who's players are better which is a fight we are going to lose at the moment.

There is something rotten in this group of players that there is no heart, leadership or any signs of fight inside them. We hear stories of the squad hurting after games like this but I'm pretty sure there is a few in there who simply couldn't give a f**k. With a good crop of youngsters hopefully coming through in the next few years this needs to be solved ASAP as its a virus that spreads.

On the tactics I'd like to see some sort of ingenuity to get ahead of other counties rather than try implement a blanket defense 5 years after the others have.

Fear - of opposition, of Croke Park, of making a mistake
Lack of Courage
Lack of Intelligence (high balls into Chris Healy ffs)
Lack of talent / basic skills
Lack of leadership / leaders
Lack of understanding of game plan (I can't believe that was the planned approach to "transitioning")
Lack of practice with the game plan (15 on 15 in NFL)
Lack of talent
Lack of confidence
Lack of fitness / wrong type of fitness -- gym monkeys with no pace
Lack of Paddy Brophy / Padraig Fogarty & yes even Tom O'Connor to provide some height up front
Injuries to really key players (Cribbin, Flynn, Feely)
Players living off reputation from 2009-11 era.

Some management issues, some players. No idea where we go from here. As said on another post I'd almost stand-down the management for 2 weeks and let the players organise themselves for the next one and just play off the cuff. Won't happen of course but could it be any worse?

Niall kelly dropped deep as predicted and Bolton was basically our go to man for scores.. it doesn't add up.. no left footer after tyrell went and Flynn misses what should have been an easy free.. chasing the game, the manager introduces mernaghan and Houli defenders.. I'm not sure cian is up to it.

I'm not making excuses for the players. They were bad yesterday. Very bad but do people really think they have no heart? That they're actually this bad and this is the best they can do? Because I've followed these lads constantly for the last 10 years and know they are capable of better than this.

Does Bolton have no fight in him? Eoin Doyle? Ollie Lyons? These players are better than what we're seeing. Yes they have to take some responsibility but aside from a handful of new faces this is the same group of players that were there last year and played a hell of a lot better than they are now.

It's all well and good to say we need new players. Get rid of this lad and that lad but who's coming in? O'Neill already said that several of the U21s refused to join the panel. Then he brought in 2 of them and dropped them a couple of weeks later. Will other good club players around the county really opt into a panel where they're trying to play this awful style of football? I can't see them lining up to do it.  

We don't have the players to take on the likes of Dublin or Kerry but we definitely have players that are capable of playing with more fight against the likes of Westmeath and Wexford than we're seeing. If O'Neill doesn't soon cop on that either these players aren't built to play the way he wants them to or else he's not coaching them well enough to do so then I don't know what benefit he thinks will come from persisting with these new "game plans."

You would think that they would get sick of losing. I know I am. There must be a breaking point or a light bulb moment with some of them that it suddenly clicks.

Half the problem in my view is as a County we are afraid to criticise our players. We skirt around issues, tell them hard luck but no real home truths apart from on here.

In other Counties the players would hardly be let back in. It allows lads to play in the comfort zone knowing their are no repercussions for abject displays. On the other hand If they are successful, they get treated like kings.

Hopefully, seeing themselves ridiculed by Tommy Carr and the likes of Spillane on national TV will light a fire under them.

Let them play with their clubs more regular and stop wrapping them up in cotton wool.. Wouldn't they be far better of playing a club match than doing another gym session.
Was at a club match recently, and one of our stars in white didn't want to know about it.. Never stopped whinging to the ref even though he was getting every protection and decision.. he eventually came off himself ahem injured, and strutted off with an attitude of royalty.. funny it's not.

Rex wrote:

You would think that they would get sick of losing. I know I am. There must be a breaking point or a light bulb moment with some of them that it suddenly clicks.

Half the problem in my view is as a County we are afraid to criticise our players. We skirt around issues, tell them hard luck but no real home truths apart from on here.

In other Counties the players would hardly be let back in. It allows lads to play in the comfort zone knowing their are no repercussions for abject displays. On the other hand If they are successful, they get treated like kings.

Hopefully, seeing themselves ridiculed by Tommy Carr and the likes of Spillane on national TV will light a fire under them.

Rex it shouldn't take that to get a display from lads who are the closest thing to professional in the History of GAA.

All that will do will give you yoyo performances and in my eyes isn't the type of players or squad I'd want in Kildare.
You want lads who'll give you everything they have when they pull on the white shirt, whether that's the first week in Jan in O'Byrne cup or August in a AI semi v Down.

You look at the likes of Dermot Earley, Glenn Ryan, Johnny D, Rainbow, Kerrigan and in more recent times I would say Bolton and Callaghan and ask the new crop to show the same commitment, desire and will to win as they have shown in the past. Whatever about skill or ability because JD will never be equaled at least match them for commitment . After that you can have no complaints .

If you go down swinging nothing more can be asked of you and I would certainly say no genuine fan would ever crib about losing .

Kildare players should be shown a video of Iceland tonight. Anyone who underestimates the importance of courage in sport doesn't understand team sports. Collective nervous breakdown from
England tonight whereas Iceland's raw spirit coupled with no little skill carried them across the line. People can defend the Kildare players til the cows come home but there has been a collective absence of courage for 2 or 3 years now.

Thanks WM for saving us another wasted Sunday in croker and the humiliation of another hammering from the Dubs.. where would we be going when we couldn't beat a DIV 4 team.. the sooner we're beaten now the better, and get the club championship going.

Some won't agree but I think in Kildare these past few years we have been way too slow in putting good underage players on the panel. For me Mc Cormack, con Kavanagh, mark sherry, paul mescal, Luke flynn and cein Mc monagle should all be on it but aren't for one reason or another.

There is still way too much dead weight on the panel that shit themselves in crocker everytime they go there. Last August that team died and new lads should have been thrown in. Granted there have been some changes but not enough.

For example Meath have a whole new team and based on 1st half on sun have a bright future, they would hammer us if we met this year. We are already playing catch up with teams like that.

We are in big danger of wasting our recent relative success at underage level if we don't take the plunge and give these lads their chance. Its a bloody young mans game now after all.

rob11 wrote:

Some won't agree but I think in Kildare these past few years we have been way too slow in putting good underage players on the panel. For me Mc Cormack, con Kavanagh, mark sherry, paul mescal, Luke flynn and cein Mc monagle should all be on it but aren't for one reason or another.

There is still way too much dead weight on the panel that shit themselves in crocker everytime they go there. Last August that team died and new lads should have been thrown in. Granted there have been some changes but not enough.

For example Meath have a whole new team and based on 1st half on sun have a bright future, they would hammer us if we met this year. We are already playing catch up with teams like that.

We are in big danger of wasting our recent relative success at underage level if we don't take the plunge and give these lads their chance. Its a bloody young mans game now after all.

Rob while I don't entirely disagree 4 of the lads you mention were asked in at 1 stage and refused the invite and they may well have genuine reasons but they still refused. Ray Cahill who to some seems to be the the next Colm Cooper didn't make the league panel but then was invited to join the panel and he REFUSED. So we can say this lad should or shouldn't be on the panel but its honest hard working players not necessarily just skillful players.

Big loss not to get those u21s above in. Youll only ever get a few off a good u 21 team and those above were the best of them. Hopefully they can commit next year.

Just to clarify Jim, Ray was never asked back into the panel. He didn't refuse anything. Cian O Neill and his management team just don't believe Ray is among the top 12 forwards in Kildare. I don't think anybody believes Ray is the next Colm Cooper but what they do believe/know is that he is a lot better than some of the forwards on the panel.

Topcat i agree with you 100% id have Ray Cahill on the panel. I think he's a very good forward wheather he's up to it or not who know but I'd leth him have a go.
I personally don't know if he was asked back in or not but Cian did say he was asked back in. I know you say he wasn't and i don't know. But wheather he was or wasn't is beside the point. But for a guy that has never kicked a ball in either league or championship for kildare his names is thrown arould as if he was going to be the saviour of kildare football. It's not Rays fault and I'm sure it doesn't sit well with him either. My point is the manager has picked his panel so their they guys we have. Now how does he get the best out of what he has. Thats what makes him a top class manager. It doesn't mean kildare will win anything but he has to get the best out of the panel he has. He may be a great coach but a manager is a very different job, and lets be honest its a job he's never done before.

i said it before its time to completely re jig get in the younger lads and build for a shot at leinster title 1n three years because whats going on now is as sure as hell not working we are second in the pecking order in leinster in under age at the moment that needs to be advanced even further its all about a change of mentality

Interesting points made by Shergar regarding the coaching of the team. I must admit I find it strange to see Cian O'Neill with a whistle supervising the warm-up with the team just before a match. To me that's not the role of a manager and it would suggest that he hasn't made the transition from coach to manager and is more of a coach at heart.

The most disappointing aspect about Cian's time in charge so far is that we seem to be weak in the 2 areas I thought we'd be strong in under him, namely coaching and physical fitness. I know it's easy to say that the team doesn't look fit when we lose but we have faded in the second half of our last 3 games in Croker. I'd agree as well that the coaching seems to be sub standard. I hoped that with 5 weeks to work on our game plan since the Wexford game that we'd improve our attacking play but we didn't really and our age-old problems of tackling and free-taking came back to bite us again on Sunday. I still believe we have the players that could do an awful lot better with good coaching.