Meath v Kildare

I think it's fucking pointless to be talking about missing players. The players we had yesterday did good enough to get a 5 point lead at half time. Then they did bad enough to throw it away.

And in any case, there's always times where the "best" players either won't show the necessary commitment. I can fully understand why men in their 20s might sometimes decide that all the training, diet, no pints, etc isn't for them or just want to take a break from it. You just have to move on with what you have.

I think we also have an overinflated sense of the abilities of our bunch of lads in their late 20s. They flattered to deceive when they were 17/18 and they continue to do so at 26/27/28.

CON has altered his selectors/backroom team 3 times so far and with with some of our best former players so I don't think he can take all the blame and I honestly believe we don't have the players capable of playing in Div 1 at present.

As for players who don't want to commit how could anyone blame them, very slim chance of winning a Leinster and less chance of winning an All Ireland for training non stop for 11 months of every year.

Look at Cork and Down now, remember its was only 2010 when we were competing with them for an All Ireland, so its not just Kildare.

The thing about winning silverware is, you need to be in Div 1.

And what utterly sickens me is that with the relative advantages we have - the county’s location & the enthusiasm for football - we should be a consistent Div 1 team.

Monaghan - with far less resources - and Mayo - with a far less illustrious tradition than Dublin & Kerry - have genuinely made a show of us over the past six years. Carlow beat us last year. We are currently being outperformed by FERMANAGH.

Each to their own but I find all of this totally unacceptable, particularly bearing in mind underage results & silverware over past 10 years.

But for those who disagree, the good news is that we have plenty of time to sharpen our debating skills, because until we get back to Div 1 and stay there, we are an irrelevance.

On a wider note, this is utterly disastrous for the Leinster Council & the GAA generally.

Our spirit is broken & Dublin will beat us out the gate by about 30 points this summer – if we get that far. Will be the same story with Meath.

That should demoralise both counties sufficiently to ensure Dubs chalk up around a dozen Leinsters in a row.

Unless Kerry summon the spirit of 1975, there is every chance the Dubs will walk All Ireland again this year.

I honestly think football is in its death throes.

I agree, thanks God for club football, or for a long as that avoids the knock on effects.

Far from a great result and removes some of the hope I had for this year, we just seem to make the same mistakes over and over again on the pitch.....
I also don't buy into a lot of the sack the manager stuff, and e.g. Davy Burke people wud be all on here saying he is to naieve and doesn't have enough experience at adult level after losing a game of two....
I also wouldn't be talking about the players who don't want to be there... simple they do not want to play football for Kildare end of story so forget about them.... does anyone think we are unique in this there are a few in every county with the same story.... please stop and them lads are entitled to do what they want....
The players on the pitch have a lot to answer for after every game either club or county any age group and most sports I always ask myself who gave 120% who can barely walk off the pitch they are so wrecked, who put the body on the line..... apart from Eoin Doyle and Mark Donnellan for the save would I be stretching it at maybe 1-2 more?

Hugely disappointing league campaign thus far. With a few brief exceptions we seem flat and lacking in desire which is a huge worry for the remainder of year. Like so many here I wouldn’t apportion complete blame to management but I do feel they’re not getting anywhere near the full potential out of squad that’s there. Change is required or we’ll continue to thread water

The squad aint all that. We lie somewhere between round 7th and 11th in the country. We lost a few players who were intercounty standard, dont forget Byrne and Kelly as well as DF, and we havent replaced them. We have suffered a lot of injuries this year too which we were very lucky to avoid last term. I dont get the manager thing. Same people who wanted McGeeney out (one of our best ever) wanted O'Neill in. Jason Ryan was useless too apparently. So was Crofton. Now Confey Davy is the answer. Until hes actually in of course when he will become Public Enemy No.1 once we lose an OByrne Cup game. Had Dardis put the ball another 2 feet higher over the bar, ive no doubt we would be reading all about heroic battlers today on here. Just like some thought last weeks performance against a wasteful Clare was excellent.

Lilysavage that is probably the most balanced post yet. Had Aaron O'Neill got a couple of inches closer to save the penalty it would be so different, the Meath players and supports were almost ecstatic afterwards, a game of inches and contrasting reactions but it doesn't get away from coughing up a huge lead like we did in the early league games last year. There are no hard luck stories it's up to players mostly and to a lesser extent the management to change these circumstances, no point relying on circumstances hoping the opposition won't kick on late in a game or hoping a lucky call for us to get over the line. This team are not suddenly bad overnight but they have to learn to kick on and close out games.

After yesterday this might cheer one or two up

https://www.gaa.ie/gaa-now/archive/

its hard to argue with most of above but with a few injured players returning a win v tipp and then getting a crack at the dubs in may sure what more do we want ,is it possible flynn would come back ?

Sort out our tackling and you fix 70% of what's wrong with this team. Bad tackling leads to indiscipline, black cards, red cards and easy frees.

Get Paul Grimley in for 8 weeks and drill them likw he did in McGeeney's early years. We were the best tacklers in the Country then. It can be fixed, but for six years it has been ignored. If I could change one thing about this team it would be the tackle.

Honestly one of the most painful defeats in a long time because it was a fork in the road moment.

I probably my head read but the Kildare football team is one of the things I’m most passionate about & when they aren’t going well, it hurts.

Wish I could say different but can’t see us picking up the pieces this year. Meath celebrated so wildly because they knew what was at stake.

As Jim McGuinness says, there are moments & you have to seize them. Gonna take a while to recover from this one.

And yes, I’m going to say it again - Cian O’Neill isn’t getting the best out of this group, certainly not consistently. Strip out 2017 & the second half of last year and he’s essentially Jason Ryan Mark 2.

I was a big advocate of him getting the job but overall his tenure hasn’t been a success. That’s being straight up with him because I know what’s what he’s want. Time for a change.

Agree with Rex about the tackling but given that it's CON's 4th year in charge - it's unlikely we're going to see any improvement at this stage.

Another area that seems to be letting us down is fitness/conditioning. Meath totally outran us in the 2nd half. We hardly won a kick-out in the 2nd half yesterday, either cleanly or from a break. I know we had injuries but it's hard to believe Aaron Masterson wasn't brought on. Paul Cribbin wasn't fit and Kevin O'Callaghan is unproven at this level so Masterson should have been on before them. Also, it's hard to know what Adam Tyrell brings to the team.

Apart from Doyle and Feely - our middle eight were poor and we need to make changes. I'd love to see Tony Archbold given a chance. It might be a bit early for him but he's the kind of athletic player we need at wing forward. Did Chris Healy rejoin the panel after TMH's run in the Leinster club? He's another all action player we've missed. Maybe Mark Sherry too. Hopefully Paul Cribbin and Kevin Flynn might be ready in 2 weeks time.

It's important we stop feeling sorry for ourselves and focus on the Tipp match in 2 weeks as we're not safe from relegation yet. Ironically if we did win our last 2 games, we'd have a reasonable chance of promotion as we'd be ahead of Donegal and Fermanagh's last 2 matches are away to Armagh and Meath which are not easy. As ever supporting Kildare, it's the hope that kills you...

There's things all Good Managers insist on in a Team. 1 is work rate ,playing as a unit, tackling Hard, from 1 to 15 . That you starting point. We don't do any of that. Simple things like picking up Breaking Ball, form midfielders. We have being wiped out on that all last year and yesterday again. Our work rate if not up to it, and that comes from the Manager. I like C O N but I think the time is up. You need a new voice in there. Believe me I don't like calling for Managers Heads, but this is his 4 year and I think we goning nowhere. The Game is up Lads, if he leaves us in Div 2 this year,it gives the new man, a chance to build with some U 20 on 2 to 3 year Deal. I think that the way forward.

Sent from Topic'it App

I’m not too pushed about promotion this year it has been so stop start in terms of injuries and players dropping off the panel. In terms of performances we should be doing better we scored one point in both our last two second halves which is clearly not good enough. Our tackling and discipline is clearly not good enough neither is our kick out strategy. We are missing a big target man up front Dan is a massive loss.

Very disappointed with the whole lot.. lots of issue's not many answers.
We're certainly not up to Div 1 at this point in time.. so not getting promoted isn't a bad thing.

Looking at the AI Betting . The top 6 plus Donegal are 20/1 and lower.. the next best are 100/1 and over.. sums it up.

Cavan and Roscommon are likely to be relegated again.. and chances are whomever goes up this term will probably suffer the same fate next Term.

Coming home from that match actually felt worse than the Carlow match last year and the Fermanagh match earlier this year. Purely because at half time we looked in control. Meath weren't hitting the target at all and we had a healthy lead. Devastating to see such a terrible second half. Meath stood up to us in the second half and they won almost every kickout and breaking ball. They looked like they wanted it more and looked like they were willing to fight for it.

Also must be said that Ben McCormack played fantastic for the short while he was on and if he will be out for any match, then that's another big loss.

Any news on injuries and players returning?

McCormack has a broken finger I was told. Needs operation. 8 weeks apparently.

talking to a man who has a son in the us he is training with daniel flynn he said he is flying .

moatesports wrote:

talking to a man who has a son in the us he is training with daniel  flynn he said he is flying .

Top Gun.

If you look at all the top teams, they fall back in numbers when defending, tackle hard,force turnovers move the ball quickly with a combination of hand and kick passes and defenders score after lung busting runs into space.This was the model that Davy Burke used with U20'S, he always had a target man McLoughlin and ball player Hyland near goals with good kick passers like Nash,Woodgate and Masterson finding them with early and accurate deliveries..Kildare seniors just don't have the skill or mind set to play this game,tackling is weak and they are slow to pick up runners from deep.The inside line only get ball as last resort .
I hope they give Gibbons, Masterson and Archibold a decent amount of game time in next two games to try something different. Hard Tackling centre back,pace from backline and good early kick passes from midfield. Would love to see Hyland kick 3 or 4 points in a game and announce his arrival on senior stage. Target man in full forward line is still required as option, look at damage Tommy Walsh done last week for Kerry.

Surely Brophy is our best option at full forward. He has twice scored goals against Dublin by winning the ball and taking on his man.
Disappointing for Ben, he has been the one bright spark this year. Hope Hyland doesn't get disillusioned with the quality of ball he is getting compared to last year.