Kildare v Longford

Pat Spillane calls the Kildare team the most frustrating team and states that they have a soft underbelly, hard to argue with that, despite any management issues the players have to take responsibility too.

3 changes
O'Grady for M Hyland, Moolick for O'Flaherty and J Hyland for N Flynn

That was some goal by Conway , good kick out , well gathered by moolick ,superb run and shot , and a big shout out to Slattery today his direct running caused problems all day

Well done team and management today. Lessons learned. Another handy one next week.

As above, credit to both players and management and good wishes next week

Yep, if the criticism was richly deserved then so is the credit for this one.

I completely agree, credit is absolutely due. The challenge is to get some form of consistency now, it's not enough to have two good performances last year against Mayo and Fermanagh and just one decent one this year. The problem is that this bunch are good enough to challenge most teams. Well done to them. I am almost confused now as part of me is looking forward to the Dublin game even though I was dreading it before today, deluded or what.

Job done. Congrats to all involved. Mick O' Grady coming back tightened us up a lot. Much better tackling all round from the team. Like all sport it's the simple things that make the difference (making sure if your opponents score that they had to work bloody hard to get it). Was dreading the prospect of next Sunday and still am to be honest, but hopefully we play to our full potential and give it a good lash. For anyone interested in a bet i just checked  Dubs 1/33     Draw 18/1     Lillies  11/1.  Think i'll hold my money for the Derby!!!

Will fly back for game next Sunday. Sounds from KFM that we defended a lot better and gave forwards the ammunition to win the game. Anything less than a 10 point defeat would be seen positively. It is the best time to play Dublin but we are still a shambles. All I want to see is Kildare completely empty the tank next week and no silly errors gifting Dublin goals.

It's a win.. and badly needed by all I think.. but no one will be getting excited.

Those odds are not too dissimilar to Joshua v Ruiz....... just saying!

Reposting people’s validly held opinions based on what’s gone before is juvenile in the highest degree.
Every one of those comments stand the test of time.
I was there yesterday, as I have been every other match. Delighted they won and a much improved performance.
But we didn’t score for nearly 20 minutes, against what turned out to be a shocking Longford team. We pulled it together after that and kicked on. But make no doubt, do that against the dubs and we’ll be looking at a record beating.
The defence was much better. Longford aren’t what I’d personally judge our defence against though. Our forwards made good runs and kicked points well. But there was no pressure on them and the goal attempts were shocking.
But like I said, much improved. But reposting people’s rightly held opinions in an effort to make a joke out of them? No thanks.... Juvenile stuff, you haven’t proven them wrong, or yourself right.
On another note, Cian O’Neill telling the media we’ll beat the dubs... can’t he walk by a mic without having to make a comment?

Badger85 wrote:

Reposting people’s validly held opinions based on what’s gone before is juvenile in the highest degree.
Every one of those comments stand the test of time.
I was there yesterday, as I have been every other match. Delighted they won and a much improved performance.
But we didn’t score for nearly 20 minutes, against what turned out to be a shocking Longford team. We pulled it together after that and kicked on. But make no doubt, do that against the dubs and we’ll be looking at a record beating.
The defence was much better. Longford aren’t what I’d personally judge our defence against though. Our forwards made good runs and kicked points well. But there was no pressure on them and the goal attempts were shocking.
But like I said, much improved. But reposting people’s rightly held opinions in an effort to make a joke out of them? No thanks.... Juvenile stuff, you haven’t proven them wrong, or yourself right.
On another note, Cian O’Neill telling the media we’ll beat the dubs... can’t he walk by a mic without having to make a comment?

With all due respect Badger85, I think Ogie is simply highlighting the way people jump on decisions made by the management and pulled apart on this forum as well as on others without actually knowing all the details.... I don't think he was making a joke out of them at all, however maybe, before people react with hysteria, there should also be some perspective.

I think that it is a pity that people like you dwell on the first 20 minutes where Kildare were not great at all and on all the other weak points which you correctly point out however we won, and it was a convincing win. Am I confident against the Dubs? No, however I hope they throw everything at them and at least give them a good game. Would any other team be confident?

Out of interest, your dislike of CON taints your posts, you may dislike him and that is fine however what did you expect him to say yesterday when asked the question? If he said that Kildare would be trounced next Sunday you would have jumped on him that he has no faith in the team, that he is useless etc etc Can he win with you at all?

I’d expect him to give a Jim Gavin style answer. Say nothing. Hes too fond of the media.
With regards to highlighting the first 20, a match is 70+ minutes. It has to be taken in its totality. You can’t ignore the first 20 and highlight the middle third of the match.
Kildare are a far better team than they’ve been showing. We need to have higher standards and if people think not highlighting the faults adheres to that then they’re sorely wrong.
Delighted with the win. But let’s not fool ourselves, Longford and Wicklow are poor, poor teams.
The issues people have raised are still valid and can still be raised until we put a string of performances together that can dispel them, against teams of similar levels to what we should be.

Lot of sh1te talked about whats said to the media. Couple of soundbites a week. Means F**K ALL. All that matters is what happens on the pitch.

Justifiably a lot of negativity around CON simply because of the inconsistency. If he got performances like v Mayo last year from the players he’d be in a very strong position. There is no team bar maybe cork capable of beating a top team (at least in paper) but also of losing to Longford or Wicklow. The debate around a two tier championship seems alien to anyone just following Kildare. At times under Micko and Geezer we were just tapped out at the end of the day. Limitations in the players we had available came to the fore and we didn’t get over the line. All of our exits under O’Neill have had me thinking there is something management could have done to win those relevant games. Mayo 2016 we could have won that. Kerry, Monaghan, Galway last year could have been won. Obviously fucking Carlow. Is it too much to ask for a management team to get total buy-in from the 30 best players in Kildare, be the fittest team in the country and die on their shields at the end of each summer?

One bonus from yesterday's win is that our county champions avoid the preliminary round in Leinster club championship and go straight into the quarter finals.

its just great being a kildare supporter its always glass half full or is it half empty still think there is a team in there somewhere to cause damage ,hope big following in croke park next sunday

Much better display yesterday. We were a lot sharper and didn’t give Longford the free shots we did the week before. I thought our attacking play was good, some nice kick passing into the full forwards and some nice hand passing moves. The return of Tommy Moolick and Mick O’Grady helped, I thought Moolick was excellent. Some good freetaking from Neil Flynn as well - I think he’s our best free-taker.

The big pity for me is that we wait until well into the championship before we play for the full 70 minutes in a match. If we played like that in the league, we would have had a good chance of getting promoted.

I just hope we play for the full 70 minutes next week, stick to the game plan and don’t drop the heads whatever happens.