Kildare Juniors

niallos wrote:

Kildare won the leinster junior title in 2004 with a team picked from junior and intermediate players.
Since 2009 we've had the pick of all senior club players except those that have played senior inter county championship in the previous or current year.
In 2009 our senior 2nd team lost to Dublin's Junior 2nd team (they were AI champs and couldn't play the winning team). They lost the next round.
Last year we lost to Louth, they did win Leinster but not the AI, Sligo won that.
Then this year we finally win Leinster, struggle over Lancashire at home in the semi and lose to Cork's junior team in the final. And correct me if i'm wrong here but don't Cork have a lot of divisional sides so some of their intermediate and junior club players would still be ineligible as they would play senior with their divisional sides.
Now forgive me for not having an inferiority complex but i think Kildare can do better and should be doing better. I don't believe for a second we don't have the players to do this cos i see quality players every week in the senior club championship. The question i'm asking is, was that Kildare's best team?
I'm sure genuine kildare supporters (which i clearly am not apparently) can answer that for me.

Ok niallos, name some of these players you've seen in the senior championship you think should be on the panel or team?

There are players who are playing very well in senior champ that would be better then some of the juniors.
Looking at some games over the last weekend, you have Conor Tiernan, Andrew Darmody, Eoin Doyle all I would believe improve that junior team but I dont know whether they were involved or not only Tony Kelly and the players themselves know that but I'd agree with Niallos and say that it wasnt our strongest second team if that makes sense

Tiernan and Doyle were both involved and gave it up. Actually I think Tiernan may have been involved in 1st team set up before he went away with army.

It irrelevant who is or isn't good enough ElGuerrouj.

The lads who were there were the ones who were willing to give the time and committment to do so. The others had their own reasons for not doing so.

Anything else is irrelevant and unfair on each and every one of the lads who gave the commitment.

Its funny how they get beaten in All Ireland Final before all this crap appears, even though they had won 2 or 3 games including a Leinster Final with more or less the same panel.

So you're agreeing with my point then Fionn!??

I pretty much said exact same thing about the lads who don't want to do it.

ElGuerrouj wrote:

So you're agreeing with my point then Fionn!??

I pretty much said exact same thing about the lads who don't want to do it.

I 100% agree with it, i was suggesting to not to even bother tyring to argue with them.

Lost in translation.

There was one or two names and faces that surprised me when I saw the line up and bench for the match last Saturday, but like others have already said these lads are there because they've been willing to put so much into it over the last few months. Maybe there are better players out there at club level, but if they're not willing to put in the sacrifices that others can, then unfortunately that's what they'll remain as, club players. Lads are there based on merit, ability and attitude so fair play to them for putting in the work. If some players aren't willing to put in the same effort that others are, then is it not right that they aren't on the panel, regardless of how good somebody thinks they are?

The lads who played gave it their all, against a Cork side who've won this title four times over the last number of years (they won't win it next year but they'll probably be favourites the year after that). We could have won it, we had enough chances to win it but it was the same old story, too many wides and no real goal chances. No point moaning about it now. Cork at the same time had they lost, would have had the argument to make, kicked plenty of wides themselves and had two good goal chances saved by Eyres. Experience in the end probably saw them just over the line.

It's easy for us to turn around and pick out a few players who didn't play well, or suggest players who might indeed be better footballers, but I don't think anybody should be in a position to have a go at the junior panel or those on it after last Saturday.

Runners up in an All Ireland final after extra time and people are still able to complain about players not being good enough, God knows what the carry on would be like if it were to happen to the seniors.

was it not mentioned that some of the subs that came on had only been brought onto the panel in the last few weeks? those lads didnt really have to put in that much committment to get to play in an AIF.

i think the key point in guys argument here is that given the selection, training and committment the panel made its suprising and to say the least very dissapointing to miss out on an AI for Kildare, as has been said, doesnt come around that often!

I would suspect the team from saturday will lose 2 or 3 more so they will find it hard to get to the same level again.Which would make sat loss even harder to take for them.
Fitzpatrick should make the step up,paddy dunne also.
Then possibly ciaran kelly and darrock mulhall.

agree with you supersub on the player's that should be brought onto senior panel, theres a few on senior panel who could be replaced with fresh faces and keep other lads on there toes.....

3 of those mentioned by supersub already of the senior panel.

Those 4 lads you mentioned supersub will continue to be apart of the Senior panel, but I cannot see them making the step up that quickly to becoming Senior regulars or championship starters next season.

I dunno,i think fitzpatrick is a class act and will have a big part to play next year.The only problem is we have 4 outstanding lads for the full back line and thats not including peter kelly who should return next season.
Dunne has a good chance too as we dont have that same level in the midfield sector.I see him being a good substitute to come into game although he does have a few things to work on.

I cant wait for the o'byrne cup to see some these lads who peaked their heads this season.
Fitzpatrick(again) dunne kelly mulhall fogorty hurley brophy.
Exciting times ahead.i hope we can get a good selector to get the best out of these lads now.

fionnmccool wrote:

niallos wrote:

I was at the game last saturday. The first thing that struck me about the panel was the amount of quality players that were missing and the amount of players who i didn't think were of that level on the starting team never mind on the panel.
The reason for this I believe is because the panel were doing a ridiculous amount of training (with no expenses etc), players were not allowed to train with their clubs and at some times play with their clubs and several of the best players walked away.
I'm sure the best players were under pressure from their managers as they would be the most crucial to their respective teams.
As for the match and the way it went, I think the team did their best and can be very proud of their efforts but the team was weak and the panel was light. We were wiped out at midfield and our 3 contenders for man of the match were the 3 full backs. Only for them we would have lost by 20 points. We didn't really have a dangerman up front but either did Cork i suppose, we allowed them to catch far too much clean ball and we let them waltz through the middle of the field. Our half back were under serious pressure all game and never really got to grips with it. Finally other than Mark Fitzharris i didn't see anyone on the bench who i thought might make an impact and as it turned out none of them did'
Robbie Eyres kickout was fantastic in the sense that it was very long but he kept finding the big Cork midfielders with it. And still we could have won the match.
I don't want to criticise the players but i don't think too many of these guys would be on a genuine Kildare 2nd team. Now maybe several of the top players just weren't interested, which i know has been true in previous years but this year i was told by some guys who were in there that it was just a ridiculous set up and thats why they walked away.
I'll probably get slated for this post for supposedly being negative and critical but like what other people were saying, Cork have won 4 in 7 years and got some quality players from those teams, Daniel Goulding for example, he was at the match actually
Kieron McGeeneys idea for this team was to request that we can use senior club players and then use it as a sort of development squad. And then they (not sure exactly who is responsible) set it up in such a way that many of the top players don't want to be involved.
Maybe i take defeat too hard but jesus i'd love to see any kildare team win an all ireland and theres a chance gone.

niallos your claim is absoultely off the wall.
Firstly this same bunch of lads won the Leinster Final and Reached and All Ireland final, Kildare Junior teams in the past failed to do this.

Also I dont know of any "top" players who walked away from the panel. I know of players like Scanlon,Dowling,Conway,Lyons, Fogarty, Hurley, O'Neill were all used by McGeeney in with the Senior set up which made them unavailable for selection.

I know Willie Heff had an injury and was unavailable and one or two other lads went travelling abroad.

We ourselves have got some quality players from the Junior set up since McGeeney took charge of the Seniors. Peter Kelly, Hugh Lynch and Ollie Lyons all played with the Juniors over last few years and are now injuries aside Senior Panel members, one with an All Star.

You cannot expect progress at Junior level if your using the same lads year in year out like what happened in the past.
Trials were had earlier in the year where every club were requested to send lads and the best lads who were committed were retained.

Hendy is another player who was there at the start but a couple of minutes of senior championship made him ineligible.

hendy played senior champ last year against louth so was ineligible.
as he is again next year now after getting a run this year.

Does that mean Sean Hurley and Mark Scanlon won't be able to play for the juniors next year now cause they played a few minutes for the seniors this year?

By Martin Breheny


Wednesday August 24 2011

LILYWHITE they may be, but Kildare folk must have annoyed a whole lot of black cats. Their footballers just can't wring a lucky break out of any tight call, with the juniors the latest to lose a big game narrowly.

Cork edged them out by two points in extra-time in last Saturday's All-Ireland final, completing an unlucky season where Kildare's senior footballers lost twice by a point (to Dublin in the Leinster semi-final and to Donegal in extra-time in the All-Ireland quarter-final). The U-21s also came up a point short of eventual champions Wexford in the Leinster quarter-final.

The junior championship may suffer from a prestige deficit, but it would still have been encouraging for Kildare to win what would have been their first All-Ireland football title since the U-21s triumphed in 1965.

- Martin Breheny

Loads of Pints wrote:

hendy played senior champ last year against louth so was ineligible.
as he is again next year now after getting a run this year.

My apologies, I actually thought he played in early rounds of junior. Stand corrected. So yes, same will apply to Hurley and Scano. I'd be hoping Hurley will be in the first 20 next year, but it might be tough on Scano

Has the junior football championship not rightly reverted back to being for junior players only from next year so more than a few of the guys mentioned above won't be back?