Kildare v Wicklow - 11th May

If he has the merest shred of interest in Kildare's progress he needs to resign tomorrow morning

KILL BILL wrote:

If he has the merest shred of interest in Kildare's progress he needs to resign tomorrow morning

More chance of my arse playing the banjo

Chronic stuff altogether.

Stats from the lads on the radio. 8 shots at goal in the second half and from that two points from a corner back and midfielder. Says it all. Time to go Cian.

bigball wrote:

From what I am hearing the lads are flying in training and its all systems go for Wicklow. Championship football is all about momentum and we have a great opportunity to get up and running this weekend with a big win and performance. I dont buy into the negativity which surrounded our league performances, I seen enough to tell me that we are  builiding nicely. McCormack will be fit to start by the way for those worrying. Hopefully a big crowd will be there in Carlow to cheer the lads on. Cill Dara Abu

This post hasn't aged well.

Imagine having the 2018 U20 player of the year starting in your full forward line and deciding not to base your attacking play around him, against (supposedly) one or the weakest teams in the country.
Imagine substituting your free taker whilst he's standing over the ball ready to take a kick at the posts.
Imagine going an entire 70 minutes against Wicklow and creating, what, 1 genuine goal chance?
Imagine being 7 points up with the game won, to find yourself 2 points with 5 minutes to go.
Imagine being at the mercy of your opposition missing three frees in the space of as many minutes.
Imagine playing an entire 7 game league campaign, where you struggle to find a rhythm in the second half.... And then go out in the championship and do the exact same thing all over again.
We don't have to imagine it, as this actually happened.
We won, yes. We won, against a team we should be beating by 10+ points (no offense to Wicklow). We won by 2 points.
This is just not good enough, Longford will be laughing.
Have we learned nothing in the last 2 years? Is there no pride left in the jersey? Can anybody find any positives from that win or am I just being overly negative?

Just back from that. It can be summed up as follows.

Kildare started quickly. Then a quick spurt from Wicklow. Then a 20 minute period where Wicklow couldn't win a kickouts, and couldn't hold on to a ball. Kildare couldn't hit a barn door with a belly full of puke.

2nd half, Kildare 7 points up. Numerous subs which disrupted everything. Missed goal from Wicklow, then a goal. Missed frees which they will regret.

The standard was not good. That was expected from Wicklow. But Kildare shooting and turnovers will be of major concern.

A forgettable experience, and a costly one at €25.

Listened on the radio. JD's reaction to O'Neill's decisions was startling. He was genuinely angry which is strange for him.

Sounds like Donnellan in goals had nightmare, why isn't Aaron O'Neill given a go? Give the lad his fucking chance!

€25 to see that shite? That's outrageous.

For once, I don’t have much to say as I said it all already during league. None of the failings have been rectified.

In a way, I’m surprised the players continue to stand over this, as they’re the ones giving up half their lives to play under a manager they clearly no longer believe in.

The lads who stayed away obviously knew something was amiss.

Anyway, that’s another summer wasted. Bummer.

It's a mystery what is being done in training.

So many poor attempts at goal in the first half which maybe rattled the forwards as we gave up attempting in the 2nd half.

The basic hand skills still lacking. Dropping ball, failing to catch a handpass cleanly. Never ends.

Still looking to burst through two players rather than look for a pass to a man in space.

No one seeing the runs (what few were made) in behind.

Poor tackling. For maybe 5 or so years at this point.

While the players are doing themsevles no favour at all, the above issues are COACHABLE. They can be worked on. And they aren't.

John R

You make some very valid points about skills. There was little of it out on that pitch.

But I need to ask you - should the players not have these skills already, or are they just not good enough ???

One hundred percent, there is more in these players. They’ve shown it at times under O’Neill, although he’s not consistently getting the best out of them.

That’s another way of saying he isn’t a good enough manager at this level. Genuinely, if I was him, I would have resigned after league but he’s obviously determined to hang in there - to what end, I don’t know, as it can’t be particularly enjoyable.

People say inter-county management is cutthroat - well, news flash, it is.

If you’ve a problem with that, don’t sign on for it. That solves that problem.

For 15 to 20 mins before the game started i looked to my left and Wicklow were having a leisurely kickabout. I looked to my right and we were doing drills...dribbles, mad dashes, sprinting, hopping off each other. Just before the Anthem some of the lads were already blowing hard and 3 of the lads in particular were sweatin like mad. I said to the Mrs i hope this doesn't come back to haunt us in the last quarter. Is it just me or is this pre match routine feckin crazy !!!

I'm sure as individuals the players have all the skills in the world. They are a talented bunch. As HG said, they've produced good stuff but again the coach is not able to develop a system to play to that level frequently. It's genuinely baffling what is happening in the 2nd halves of matches this year. The lads need therapy or something to get over this fear of playing for 70 minutes but that's another issue to skills.

In the match day scenario there's so much panic in our attacks and general play at times. Everything seems off the cuff - thus lots of room for error when players are all over the place and you are struggling to find a pass. Other players getting the yips on catching and controlling a pass if a defender is steaming towards him. In fairness to players at times they are being flung awful passes and you can't blame them for struggling to take it easily. Having skills in training is one thing but the ability to apply those skills in a pressure environment is something that is killing us rather often these days.

Something someone said to me during the week in the context of the late great Eugene McGee.

Consider that himself, Micko & Sean Boylan were the bane of the Dubs for so many years and the most successful Leinster managers outside Dublin over the last 50 years.

And as my mate said, you then hit on a colossal irony...

As the game has gotten more professional, the managers have actually gotten WORSE!!

Strange but true.

Dominated the middle third and created enough chances to be out of sight by half time, that's about the only positive to take from it.

Very frustrating for the likes of Hyland and Slats who spent most of the evening getting in behind their man when the ball was being moved quickly, and then getting out in front when we won it around the half back line. Yet you could count on one hand the amount of times the ball went into the when they were free.

Too many players happy to take a shot from 30+ yards out in the first when we a couple of points ahead, cleaning up on kickouts and getting men forward for situations which could and should have led to goal chances.

Not enough players willing to take on a shot late on when we needed a score or two to settle ourselves when the momentum was going against us and we ended up constantly running into defenders.

A wins a win I suppose and onto Longford. Fuck knows what the Dubs would do to us based on today.

Hard to watch... genuinely feel sorry for the players. Their careers are slipping past them.. what a complete waste of 4 years

Re Dubs, unfortunately we do know: 20-point plus annihilation - which puts us back where we were under Jason Ryan.

We swore we’d never let it happen again! Well it’s happening in front of our eyes.

HauntedGraffiti wrote:

Re Dubs, unfortunately we do know: 20-point plus annihilation - which puts us back where we were under Jason Ryan.

We swore we’d never let it happen again! Well it’s happening in front of our eyes.

Suppose there's a strong argument for saying we won't find out this year.

Not sure if that's a good thing or not though...

As I said earlier in thread, I think Longford will beat us - this team is a shambles with no gameplan or belief - so possibly a moot point.

These players are good players. Most have won at least one underage leinster. So frustrating same issues for four years. Apart from Kerry and Dublin and maybe a couple more... struggling to think of many more counties with this much talent. N flynn, Ben McC, Jimmy Hyland, D flynn are four of the most gifted forwards I’ve seen in a Kildare shirt. J Doyle levels in terms of potential. Am I wrong here/deluded? National media will see our next manager as a messianic figure if he gets 70/80% of what this wider group is capable of.

We need get geezer back. He got the most out of the group he had. He inspires dedication and at least we’ll be fucking fit. Unless a manager with a great track record is available, we have to go geezer. Even if he falls out with a couple, we’ve enough to catch Dublin if we are prepared properly and they underestimate us/play poorly. It would kill me to see this team have another moral defeat like Castlebar 2016 or Kilarney last year where if we had proper fucking management we’d have won twice. You have to prepare like you expect to be in croker on All-Ireland final day despite what ever, otherwise you won’t have a prayer against those teams that do. The shameful thing is that 7/8 of these kildare players would be seen as leading players if they played for any of thentop 6/7 teams.

No, Blackadder - I agree. There are also players outside this current group who are incredibly talented, like Brian McLoughlin & Jack Robinson.

But you need a manager like James Horan or Jim McGuinness who’s going to be a fucking drill sargent and DEMAND the best out of them. To be a truly great team, you have to suffer. Just look at Mayo. As Tyler Durden says in Fight Club, “Where you are now - you can’t even imagine what the bottom will be like.”

O’Neill is clearly happy with them just being another team - he’s not pushing them to the edge. Anyway short enough summer before someone else gets a go.

That was thing about Geezer - he had his failings tactically but by Jesus would he put some fucking steel in lads. Exactly the kind of hardness we are so severely lacking.

I mean, let’s face it - we are a fucking soft touch. It honestly disgusts me.