National League Division 2

Crucial here - and not to be negative but always say this about Irish rugby too - is that we've reached a good level but there must next be consistency. Fine win but means little if we lie down against Cork. Real chance of a great start now before the break and a long trip to Derry, time to take it rather than Jekyll and Hyde. Showed out there when we play well nothing to fear in the second tier, but playing well has to become the norm.

Bloody brilliant. Feely and Kelly outstanding.

There are fewer better feelings than walking out of Navan having beaten that shower.
Excellent to a man, and as Tommy says these performances have to become the norm, but being such a young team we will probably have to live with inconsisstencies.
The fact that only 2 teams claimed max points in the division is also a massive bonus. Stiffer test for sure next weekend but hopefully we can build on this. Kelly, Feely, McCormack, Doyle were outstanding.

Great craic hearing Meath men crying for a black card for every Kildare infringement, and another lad behind me calling every foul a 'personal foul' (whatever the fuck that is - must have thought he was at a basketball game)

flourman wrote:

Great craic hearing Meath men crying for a black card for every Kildare infringement, and another lad behind me calling every foul a 'personal foul' (whatever the fuck that is - must have thought he was at a basketball game)

Bigball you were spot on with your prediction about this game. First time in a long time we won playing with some conviction. The mark completely suited us with Feeley there. What was more important was our lack of panicking - they seemed composed and collected for the entire game even when meath hit those 5 points before half time. Niall Kelly's footpasses are something else........ A lot of positives and real heart shown by all. Tommy Keegan is dead right - we need to make this consistent. Winning and performing well has to become a rhythm, and hopefully next sunday we will nail another marker. Nice to hear loud volume from our travelling support - I was worried after recent results and poor attendences over the last few years would many make the trip, but walking out of the ground greeting other lilies with a warm february smile made the trip sweet for us all! More of the same next week please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

flourman wrote:

Great craic hearing Meath men crying for a black card for every Kildare infringement, and another lad behind me calling every foul a 'personal foul' (whatever the fuck that is - must have thought he was at a basketball game)

Watching them booing the ref off at half time raised a smile as well.

We made Meath look like Kildare today, they spent most of the opening half hour working it up to the 45 and then hand passing it back and forth across the pitch before ultimately coughing up possession and conceding on the counter attack.

Feely made more marks today than the entire team did throughout the O'Byrne Cup, Moolick mightn't be the fastest of midfielders but he has a serious engine and covered the whole pitch. Amazing how good a keeper Donnellan can look when he has an on-form midfield to target, made a great save near the end of the first half from what was Meath's only real goal chance.

Slightly worried about our somewhat lightweight fullback line when Meath decided to just start knocking in high balls to Sheridan but O'Grady and Hyland coped really well, as did Lyons who was constantly offering an option going forward on the break too.

Would have had Cribbin or Feely as man of the match, Dan Flynn and Niall Kelly both very impressive as well. Niall just makes things click and there was a real buzz anytime Dan got the ball in a bit of space today - no idea how he got in along the endline to nearly find the net at the end of the first half.

We actually looked like we had a plan today from the off, if we go into the Cork game with the same approach then we'll have a good shot at back to back wins. The couple of draws today definitely helps, Armagh went down last year on 6 points but after seeing how bad Down were last night you'd imagine we've enough to stay up anyways.

The only Meath player to impress today was the number 10 O'Sullivan, I'll forgive him the man-bun hairstyle on the basis he looked to actually have a go any time he got the ball and tried to make things happen at least.

I slated them after Dublin game so only right I praise them today, that was an excellent Kildare performance, yes Meath were terrible but Kildare put them to the sword, our forward play was very good particularly Ben and Niall Kelly. One slight criticism I would have is we can be a bit slow to deliver the ball into the full forward line at times. Defensively we did concede 16 points and coughed up a few goal chances but all in all I though our defenders won their individual duels hands down.

We dominated the midfield, Feely gave his best performance yet for Kildare in my opinion and won a number of marks as well as breaking the ball down intelligently at times and managed to score a point.

Oh that was lovely today. Like a lot of others I was worried about how it would go. It wasn't a fear of Meath but how we would perform and if the intensity was there. Thankfully we got that much needed level of effort. It's amazing what happens when a group all put the shoulder to the wheel.

We looked like we were playing to a system that had actually been practised in training. I was disappointed after the O'Byrne cup, not because of the loss but the manner. Today, we cut out a lot of silly mistakes and wrong choices. Now that's not to say there weren't any as we coughed up possession a couple of times which Meath scored from and a few times our forwards made the wrong decision, but they were greatly reduced.

Key moment for me was the Donnellan save at the end of the first half. 10 points up and our dodgy patch kicked in, suddenly it was down to six when the save was made. Huge swing in momentum.
Kelly, McCormack, Feely, the two Flynn's are all so young but certainly have the skill to cause any team damage. What is needed now as TK said is consistency.

We should enjoy that result this week and go into next full of confidence. Well done to everyone involved today, great way to end the week.

What's Rare is Beautiful !

Report on one of the better days following Kildare

http://kildaregaa365.com/

topcat wrote:

I slated them after Dublin game so only right I praise them today, that was an excellent Kildare performance, yes Meath were terrible but Kildare put them to the sword, our forward play was very good particularly Ben and Niall Kelly. One slight criticism I would have is we can be a bit slow to deliver the ball into the full forward line at times. Defensively we did concede 16 points and coughed up a few goal chances but all in all I though our defenders won their individual duels hands down.

We dominated the midfield, Feely gave his best performance yet for Kildare in my opinion and won a number of marks as well as breaking the ball down intelligently at times and managed to score a point.

Fair play to you Topcat. People care passionately about Kildare football and it's good to see so while the reaction to the Dublin under-14 defeat was understandable I did think it went over the top in some cases. It's certainly a happier place on here when we have a performance like today. I agree with your slight concern - well observed. I don't think we are defensively sound at all and have been somewhat fortunate to keep clean sheets in all our games this season. Doyle was magnificent again but Meath offered very little in the full forward line and we will face a lot better in the weeks to come. Feely indeed was outstanding. I had been disappointed in him after a bright start last year but am happy to agree with you today. Brilliant and took full advantage of the new mark rule. Thought Cribbin and Kelly played out of their skins and are two players who could make their mark in any county team. We shouldn't underestimate how good these two lads can be. Kelly in particular is on fire at the moment and is really showing his class. Has so much time on the ball and seems to be taking the right option most of the time. Passing is sublime and his goalscoring record this season is outstanding. Early days but delighted for him.

Above all the performance today shows what we can do if we can just keep our big players fit. Cian O'Neill was so unlucky to have both Cribbin and Flynn injured last year for the championship.

Good report Crofter. Wasn't at game but stopped of for a coffee on way home from work and read O'Neil's interview in the Nationalist. Actually felt a lot better after reading it as he explained really well what he was up against last year and the reasons for the large squad and the delay in forming a game plan. Felt a lot better on seeing the final score!
Really hope he is given time as he seems to be thinking long term for Kildare. We have a lot of the 2010 minor and 2013 U21 players on the team now and they were the best Kildare teams I saw at those grades. If we could get Brophy, Hurley and maybe Fogarty back we would have a great strength in depth.
Pity Dublin are so far ahead which makes a Leinster title unlikely in the near future but that shouldn't stop us being their biggest rivals and really competitive in the qualifiers.

It's great to have players like 2 flynns, 2 Cribbens, McCormack and Kelly who's first instinct is head up, looking forward and try to pass forward or a solo run at the goals,

Some games it might not fall for them but it should be incouraged,
Was a joy to watch today

Great win and more Importantly 2 points... the drive back from navan was shorter than usual.. Let's hope we can do the same next week.. well done to all.

As bad as Meath were it was still great to see a good Kildare performance after 2 weeks ago. Niall Kelly was a joy to watch today - when he is at the top of his game he pulls the strings for the team. The 2 Cribbens also performed well and Kevin Feely probably had his best game since he returned last year. How good our performance was will only be revealed as the league progresses. We will likely face a sterner test next weekend.

The enigma of Dan Flynn still persists though. Did some good things today but I don't think we are getting the best out of him in his current position and he is not involved enough.

Just to add, I think Keith Cribben deserves great credit for getting himself back fit again after the numerous bad injuries he has had. He has bags of talent and hopefully he can stay injury free. Thought he was very good today. Looking forward to seeing him get better as the year goes on

Gaa1928 wrote:

The way I look at it is as follows:

What is done is done, we only have to wait for 2 weeks for the beginning of the league so let's wait and see what happens in Navan on Sunday week and take things from there.

Going back to talking about previous managers etc at this stage is as waste of time, as i say, what's done is done.

I actually felt that this Dublin team would be no pushovers, what Dublin team are ? but I am very hopeful that we will kick off with a win in Navan.

Even better then I had expected, well done to all involved, roll on next Sunday, tougher test but one that I feel we are up to.

Good win, good hunger and workrate shown which I hope we maintain and don't get carried away with but positive start for 1st week in Feb.

i said it last year playing direct football long accurate kick passing is the way not that lateral game of the last few years bring it on

Great win yesterday. I must admit I was a bit disillusioned with how we were going after the Dublin match. Luckily that performance seemed to dent the supporters confidence more than the players. Great performances by Eoin Doyle, Kevin Feely, Niall Kelly, Paul Cribbin and Ben McCormack.

Interesting to hear Cian O'Neill talk about a new style of play before the match. Certainly, we were a bit more direct and kicked the ball more. I think as well we had a bit more cover defensively but we are still vulnerable when teams run at us. Did anybody spot any other major tactical changes?
After the match, Cian was talking up our 6 clean sheets so far this season (he must have included the Roscommon challenge match) It's an area we needed to improve on, but we've ridden our luck at times (and Mark Donnellan has been excellent) so the jury is still out on whether we've turned a corner in this regard.

The point was made on RTE last night that only 3 players on the team are over 25 and Ollie Lyons is the eldest at 30. As Crofter said in his report, this was our best performance since the Cork match in 2015. We've got to keep working hard and try to get some consistency into our performances.

Great win by the lads yesterday it will give everyone a great lift. What i dont like on here is when Kildare produce a good performance we automatically go back to say that Meath were bad etc they were made look bad yesterday simple as any day you beat Meath in there back yard is never easy and our recent record is not great against them. Well done.

Well done to all yesterday. A win is a win is a win, particularly in navan.
I didn't get too carried away when we lost to Dubs development squad. I've heard that they have been together under Clarke since Aug/Sept with OBC in mind so would have been conditioned to peak for January. The evidence of that is in all there games they were far stronger in 2nd half.

On yesterday if I was to look at the negatives it is two things.
Firstly we still seem very vulnerable when a pacy half forward / midfielder runs at us at pace. Were it not for a mixture of excellent goalkeeping by Donnellan and poor shooting by The Meath 10 they could have had at least a couple of green flags.

Secondly, perhaps the more concerning point is we still lack a bit of killer instinct. I know that's a bizzare thing to say after a 10 point victory but that could have been a 17-18 point hammering. We seemed to slack off a bit at times once in front instead of sticking in the knife and really ripping them apart. In the first half they got maybe 5 on the bounce and 3-4 on the bounce at one stage in second half. We won't always have the safety blanket of a 20 point lead to absorb that. One thing the best teams do in any sport is when they are on top the keep going. We know this from pastings we've gotten recently at the hands of the Dubs and Kerry in big champ games. Mickey Harte calls it being positively ruthless. Why win by 10 points when you can actually win by 18. That may be seen as some as nitpicking but that's the kind of attitude the panel must adopt to make it at the top!!

Very enjoyable yesterday,the look on the faces of the natives after 14 secs and pretty much the whole game was priceless.
Some brilliant performances Feely was so classy, looked like plenty of work done on utilising the mark haven't seen any team use it as well yet.
A couple of reservations though, no real sign of any blankets will we get as much space in other games. We still conceded 16 scores (in fairness we had no blanket either... thank f*"k...wud rather lose this way than the crap in croke park last year)
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One other thing we had about 8 pages of whinging after the OBC loss only 4 pages for build up and aftermath of a real competition. I reckon we wud be at page10 now if Meath took us for 10

Very surprised by that performance! Certainly I felt it was a game Kildare could win but to do it so emphatically I wouldn't have foreseen at all. Serious kudos to everyone - to me it's only the second fully convincing performance of O'Neill's reign, after Tipp away last year.

It was really wonderful to finally see some of these players replicate their underage form at senior. And sticking it to Meath is always brilliant - they have always had a superiority complex to Kildare so the utter shock and bewilderment amongst them was truly something to savour.

Not that I care but to me McEntee looks like Mick O'Dowd Mark II. Realistically there is a lack of quality in Meath - not surprising given recent underage record - but I think tactically, McEntee is as deficient as O'Dowd. He did well getting Meath minors to AI final in 2012 but you would have to say with Ballyboden, he had oustanding players like MD Macauley and Basquel to work with.

Anyway, like I say I don't care about that. As people have said above, it's now about consistency, a problem for most Kildare teams (well, basically all of them except McGeeney's and Micko's). Next week will be step up but if have the same focus and application we'll be in with a good chance.

Anyway, well done again to everyone - God knows there haven't been too many of these moments over the past few years. You can't beat the satisfaction on an evening like that...

Btw interview with Niall Kelly on Colm Parkinson's GAA Hour podcast on SportsJoe.ie. He got their performance of the week, well deserved.