Kildare v Tyrone

Dempsey 100% was the best defender in Kildare club championship last year by a country mile deserves call up.
Liam Healy top quality player needs to be in there but Murray’s performances will shade him I’d say ...eanna needs to prove himself at this level but deserves call up. Would love to see eoghan O’Flaherty back.

Dempsey 100% was the best defender in Kildare club championship last year by a country mile deserves call up.
Liam Healy top quality player needs to be in there but Murray’s performances will shade him I’d say ...eanna needs to prove himself at this level but deserves call up. Would love to see eoghan O’Flaherty back.

I have to say we goning the right way.If you look at it now, you can see there more players , putting pressure on players for places.Eg k een o Donohue Keith Cribbin Luke on Tommy moo , Ben mac and i hope Jimmy Hyland can get a run and do the same, and what about N.Flynn if fit a cert to start . That before any Moorefield lads come back in .When C .O .N came in 2year ago you could pick the team . We will get better come the better ground i sure of that I say it again outside Dublin,Kerry,Mayo we are every bit as good as the rest . Super 8 we will be well capable of Holding our own . A Small bit of luck we mite have 4 points. I have to laugh bar for Dublin and everybody is the same boat there , you think we were beat out the gate !! It a joke the way people go on .If Dublin were in Munster the last 6years ,Kerry would not have got with in 8points .T.o Shea is a joke coming out with that bullshite out of the blue, just because he no time for C O N .

My worry is sure young enough team in mid-20s now for most part, but go down and not get straight back up and they'll be passing best having not been back in Division One (a place you need to be a lot to compete in summer). That's bothers me more than just idea of relegation. Few consecutive years for this group in top flight could have them top-six or better when it matters regularly.

Yea agree there , that would be a worry.To be fair to C.O.N he has the players giving there all for him great to see .Second half the gave it everything.

It's a very strange situation at the moment. Having been at all the games since O'Neill took over - and to state the bloody obvious - the gap between Div 1 and 2 is enormous. We handed out a few punishment beatings last year, which we would have repeated again this year, and Christ knows that's not worth much.

But Div 1 is so savagely competitive, I genuinely think we might see a scenario unfold in football - a la hurling - where upper end Div 2 isn't too bad a place to be (not permanently, obviously). Roscommon last year arguably bears out the theory, and possibly Tipp the year before. Of course they both ultimately got their arses handed to them by Mayo but I think there's something to that theory.

The classic Kildare trait of not being able to see out tight games is hindering them... It's very frustrating but only they can fix it. I mean, looking at the history of Kildare football, you'd have to say they won't but perhaps they'll finally break the habit of a lifetime.

Age profile is still very young compared to Mayo and Monaghan too.

TommyKeegan wrote:

My worry is sure young enough team in mid-20s now for most part, but go down and not get straight back up and they'll be passing best having not been back in Division One (a place you need to be a lot to compete in summer). That's bothers me more than just idea of relegation. Few consecutive years for this group in top flight could have them top-six or better when it matters regularly.

Agree with this. As long as the summer isn't a disaster, your hope is that if they've progressed, they do a Burnley and hose through Division 2 and are then better placed to stay in Division 1. That is absolutely key to being a major player now, I have no doubt about that and I didn't always.

HG's point on the age of Mayo and Monaghan is pertinent. A lot of the Kildare lads are there for a long while but they have been playing at a poor grade. This is the learning curve and Mayo and Monaghan have been at the sharp end a decade, in Ulster for Monaghan, Mayo in All-Ireland semis and finals, eventually winning a lot of those one-point games if not the ultimate one. People talk about Kildare not learning but comparing a game this year in Division 1 to a game last year in Division 2 is just not the same. And it's not like a maths formula - you learn and there you go. You have opposition refusing to cooperate in football! You just keep going back, keep having the bitter experience.

But yeah, two or three years in Division 2 would not be good for this squad's development, if becoming a top four side is a target. I think you can see the benefits already. Now if they keep progressing, nothing to say they wouldn't edge it against Donegal but obviously, it will be very tough.

The context of Kildare football is also important. I've been watching them for years and never had we had a full decade of Kildare pushing to be a top team. The two relative periods of success we've had - Geezer and Micko - not only were they not built on, they were followed by bona fide disasters. This is where long-term planning and correct managerial appointments become absolutely vital.

I think we are on an upward curve at the moment and think CON is the best person for the job for now but I would like to hear an interview with the man when he doesn't give a 5min long winded answer to every question and just gives direct answers, think sometimes you can over science things which seems to be creeping onto the pitch.... am interested in people thinking on this....

Sometimes I think managers should identify a few people who can read a game well and ask them what problems they see. There are a few on this forum who are well qualified imo. However most managers would see this as a sign of weakness I fear.
Most of us can see that our style of defending creates a soft centre which allows the opposition to pick of easy points as our last 2 opponents showed. We could also point to the unwillingness to play quicker ball into the forward line instead of a slow build up. CO'N must be aware of these but why does he persist with them? It's cost us 2 wins imo.
Joe Schmidt, regarded as one of the best worldwide persists in trying to batter a path through lesser teams rather than trusting indivuall brilliance like Zebo or Larmour. Is it stubbornness or caution or an unwillingness to admit you're wrong? Personally I think it's costing both county and country dearly.

In fairness, Cian O'Neill has coached teams at the highest level for a few years. I'm sure he can see our shortcomings as clear as anyone else. Coming up with a plan to fix them isn't that straightforward.

If he tells Eoin Doyle to push up on the centre forward, we are at risk of conceding more goals. He's obviously worked out that we are not good at playing a very defensive game. Also, it's not always best to play quick ball into the forwards if they are outnumbered, sometimes the slow build up is better.

I'd question the decision making of our players on a lot of occasions. Also - we are prone to making bad individual mistakes. For example Mark Donnellan's poor kickout straight to a Tyrone player nearly led to a goal and Paul Cribbin losing the ball in front of the goals coming out of defence. I'm not sure how much we can blame the manager, the players have to deliver as well.

Think that’s a good point JC, the solutions aren’t always simple. If we pushed Doyle up and conceded three goals, O’Neill would be slated for being naive.

Dublin missed 2 great chances against us before they scored the 2 goals, not sure that our defensive set up is as goal proof as some think.

Rewatched the end of the game before happily deleting the whole thing! A few things...

1. From the moment Feely points the free in the 74th minute, our play is essentially a textbook example of how not to win a tight game: we become the anti-Dublin. Having done 50 percent of the work - we win the kickout - we get it to Paul Cribbin in a decent position on the left wing. He then starts messing with the ball before the inevitable turnover. Cian O'Donoghue - who make no mistake emerged as a leader in this game - wins it back and we eventually get it to Chris Healy in ANOTHER promising position.

Unfortunately he shows colossal inexperience by taking the ball into contact and again losing possession. Cue the counter attack and Donnelly's spectacular winner. This is Div 1 compressed into 90 seconds: two chances vs one half-chance - and we lose the game.

2. With everyone in the crowd - and I suspect probably half the Kildare team - thinking the game is over, O'Donoghue heroically demands the ball from Donnellan and surges up the wing. Cian O'Neill is absolutely right to say the decision not to award the advantage is absolutely disgraceful and unacceptable. The ref should be immediately removed from officiating inter-county games. It's that serious.

3. I never want to see this game again.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery etc - our defensive set-up is basically modelled on Dublin. They have Cian O'Sullivan or John Small sweeping, we have Doyle. The key difference is that their wing forwards and midfielders are better at reading the game and plugging the gaps. Also, their structure is better because one of the midfielders is always delegated the fill the centre back slot. I do think one of the biggest criticisms of O'Neill is that we don't have someone doing this (F Conway, L Flynn and T Moolick all being obvious candidates). We tick a lot of the boxes, but until we sort out this element, we're not going to be top four material.

Good news is that individually, our defenders are improving. O'Grady and Peter Kelly were really good the last day, and O'Donoghue was simply sensational. Johnny Byrne needs to give us more. Although to be fair to him - I'm not sure if he was on Peter Harte. If he was, he deserves kudos because Harte was totally obliterated. Still think Byrne needs to contribute a lot more in general play though.

micky murphy wrote:

I think we are on an upward curve at the moment and think CON is the best person for the job for now but I would like to hear an interview with the man when he doesn't give a 5min long winded answer to every question and just gives direct answers, think sometimes you can over science things which seems to be creeping onto the pitch.... am interested in people thinking on this....

There's lots of positives so far this year but we probably need more consistency from our top players like Dan Flynn is a top player but one day he can be great the next hardly touch the ball the same with Paul Cribbin.

I do think this team will need to win a couple of games in the league not to stay up but for confidence going into the championship winning is a habit but so is losing. If they lose evey game in the league i dont think that a team can be in a good mental state. My view from the start of CON stint was that he might be more suited to coaching than management

There seems to be an acceptance of where we are really at in the grand scheme of things.
All that being said we left behind games by a point against the two teams that have won a few Ulsters in recent years...and us from terrible woeful Leinster.

I think we need to use D Flynn better. He might even need to be a decoy for a short while as he is getting clogged up.
I think most agree that Doyle dropping protects the back line, but no one is stepping in ahead if him. At this stage perhaps have him at wing back sitting with Conway at 6, marking if needs be.
Or play him at midfield and sitting there.

Peter Kelly was marking Peter Harte

Lads, this is a work in progress. I really believe that O'Neill has a plan and that it is slowly coming together. Think that there is at least another years work in it, hopefully he will be around when it all comes together... He has learned from the best and has All Ireland medals to prove it, maybe we went up too quickly from Div. 3 to 1 however you only learn how good or bad you are from playing with the best... what do we expect, to succeed straight away. This is a young team and they are not there yet..
What I will say is that I was at the match last week and some of the comments and remarks from some of our so called Kildare supporters were disgraceful, either we get behind the lads and management or forget it! These lads are not getting the shirt on, on a freezing cold day to go out and lose a match, they should have won last week and in fact the week before however shouting abuse and name calling is not on. I have faith in the management team and the lads and you know what, the day O' Neill calls it a day with Kildare, there will be counties lining up to get him on board. Kildare supporters expect too much and criticise a bit too much for my liking.. Like I said before, this is a work in progress! Give it a bit more time....