Kildare Minors 2020

In fairness it was a very difficult year to prepare for a minor championship. It was very stop start and they were only allowed get together for group training a week or so before the Louth game. No challenge matches either. Johnny Doyle was involved with them so i would be surprised if they were not prepared to a high standard. Unfortunately it just does not appear to be in the Kildare DNA at the moment to go to that hard place when the going gets tough. Players not taking on personal reponsibility on the pitch to get their team out of trouble. Like alot of Kildare teams lately we seem to have alot of similar players of similar ability. Every team need two or three star players which is the difference between winning silverware and not at the end of the day. What happens this group of players and previous minor teams should be the main concern now. Do Kildare keep in touch with them going forward or are they just sent back to their clubs to develop or fall away. Some clubs could be going through a transition period or just not going well for whatever reason at the the moment. Some players could go to college and play at a decent standard while some might do a trade and end up playing only club football. My own personal view is that we need to continue with development squads after minor and we have a pool of players that Jack O Connor or whoever it is can call up one or two for senior training every so often. I suppose money plays a big part in things like these.

Poor performance at all levels this year, wouldn’t excuse it. Bearing in mind the broader debate about Dublin dominance of football atm, a few points I’d like to throw out there...

At underage level, over the past decade we’ve beaten them more than any other county. A personal opinion: during that time, Kildare have been the fig leaf for the GAA at underage that Mayo have been at senior. There is a solid argument we stopped them winning minor AIs in 2010, 13 & 15, plus U20 in 2018 (various Dublin players on those teams: McCaffrey, Kilkenny, O’Callaghan, Murchan, Howard, Bugler...).

Outside of Dublin & Kerry, since 2013, only one county has won more underage silverware than us: Galway. We’ve won the same amount of trophies as Mayo and outperformed Tyrone, Donegal, Monaghan, Cork, Cavan & Roscommon.

In any other province, we would probably have a senior provincial title by now. Leaving aside Dublin resources, something that would make us more competitive - not that Dublin would suddenly stop winning, but it would make the competition more competitive - is if Dublin had to play occasional away games against us. That happens in literally every other province. We were told it couldn’t happen in 2018 against Mayo, but we took a stand & look what happened.

Nonetheless, our county board are content with the current situation in Leinster. In that respect, we truly are a joke.

You know the way there’s this quote-unquote “mystery” about why Dublin don’t dominate to the same extent at underage... At underage level, they don’t play all their games at home.

I would suggest there is a strong correlation.

I also think they rightly see underage primarily as a place to create seniors rather than win. They don't always go hand in hand. For example when Cork were beating Kerry for years at minor, it was often by playing bigger, more physically developed players while Kerry went with skillful guys that hadn't filled out. It cost them then but they were developing better seniors via this. Also, if Dublin's sole goal was winning at minor, in preparation they wouldn't often field North and South teams in the Leinster league. You can see improvement at under-21 where they've been to six of last 11 All Ireland finals and won four. So by 19/20 they are producing the best players in the country, and they only need two or so a year to join the best senior set-up with all the advantages and a panel that's already way ahead.

At minor, we beat them in yet another Leinster final up in Navan last year.

But you can be sure in a few years, a couple of those Dub boys will have nice handy sponsorship deals, they’ll be studying flower arranging at DCU under Johnny Cooper (or UCD under Ger Brennan), & they’ll be humiliating us in Croke Park.

Still, no doubt county boards around Leinster will have plenty to say on this debate over next few months (me hole).