Kildare v Leitrim RESULT

Well what do we make of that?

I thought the full back line were good - mc grillen brilliant
Forwards need to be more confident when taking the scores
Johnnys frees werent the best
We must also take into consideration that the weather was S**TE!
Our old "pal" from meath (Cormac Rielly ) was shocking to both teams

All in all its the result thet really counts and a win allows us to progress!

Thought it was decent considering the weather. J.D missed 4 frees he would normally kick over in his sleep in the first half and Paudi missed a sitter of a goal. That's not taking into account all the other missed efforts.

We won by nine but it could and probably and should have been 15. Leitrim were poor and it throws a bad light on Connacht football.

To be honest I'm just delighted that we won and won pulling up.

I thought Leper was man of the match, although it could easily be given to Jimmers who scored 1-4 I think.

Flynn again worked his socks off and had another very good game. He has become mister dependable in the middle.

Full back line were very good again but were not up against much. Didn't concede from play in the second half and only 6 overall so it must been seen as a good days work.

Kelly continues to impress me.

On the down side, again to many silly wides and possession was given away far to easy on many occasions. Also we did not score for 20 odd minutes in the first half but J.D did miss a couple of handy frees.

I think there is a hell of a lot more to come from the lads, a barring Cork or Derry away there is not to much in the draw tomorrow that I would fear.

Absolutely shockin evening for football and because of this it was never going to be pretty.

We started very poorly, that's every game so far this championship
a better team would have exploited this. We really should have been 1-3 to no score behind after 15 minutes with Leitrim hitting the crossbar. I think we went 20 minutes in the opening half without scoring, and then went 15 at the start of the second.
That won't be good enough should we draw Cork,Dublin,Derry,Armagh in the next round.

In saying that we did miss some terrible chances Bolton, JD, Sweeney and Callaghan the guilty party.
It's good to be in the draw for the next day, but we will seriously need to up it as from here on in there will be no easy games.
Dermot seems to be struggling also, I heard he requires a knee opp and will be getting it after Kildare are knocked out.

Terrible night for football, so the result was the important thing. One worry is going 20 minutes at the start without scoring, better teams will exploit this, but hopefully this area can be worked on in the coming days.

Horrible night as said,game wasnt great but we won and thats all that matters.

I wouldnt be worried about the first 20 minutes tommy,i think if the conditions were better we would of had more scores. Jonny missed some easy frees but if the weather was better he would've put some of them over. We wasted a lot of ball in the first half. Leper was excellent tonight,full back becoming more and more solid,flano was the best in the half back line. Daryl is becoming more and more dependable but he needs to watch his temperment,saw him quite a few times hitting out at the Leitrim players who may I say were a disgrace tonight. Purposley targeted our players all over the pitch. Dermots injury could've been a lot more serious when he was taken around the neck in the throw up for the second half,that guy should've been sent off. Other incidents with JD and Shorty but I think we were not so innocent there. Ref was shocking

Forwards were not great,Id hope to see Alan Smyth back in there next week. Jemmers looked back to his best tonight while Tomas O Connor caused problems when he came on.

All in all we're improving game by game and if we avoid Cork and get a home draw we could easily reach the quarters and we'll see from there.

First impressions are job done. conditions didn't lend themselves to any quality of football. I'd imagine McGeeney will be happy enough to get a win without breaking too much sweat.

I agree, the ref was poor but was equally poor to both sides.Some of his calls (both ways) baffled me. To say Leitrim were a disgrace is a bit over the top though. It was, by and large, a clean game and what did go on was no more than handbags. We gave as good as we got!

It's onwards and upwards from here. Avoid Cork and we have a great chance, Dublin in Newbridge would do lovely. I'd hate another trip to Derry just because its not a very nice place to enjoy a match. I think we have every chance of winning up there if we do have to travel.

Not too sure what to make of tonight really.
Thought we were very poor in the first half again, Just like every other game this year.
Jimmers scored 1-4 and I thought he played poorly.. He could have scored 2-10 if his confidence was up I think.
JD was poor on frees again, That's 3 games in a row.
Also thought Roly, PON and Eoghan Flats played badly enough.
Shorty was unsure of himself

On the plus side...
A lot of the above could be down to the weather.
I am more impressed with P Kelly every time I see him,
Flynn is getting better also with each game.
I like that we are able to bring Tom O Connor on, I like the mayhem he causes under a high ball. Don't think he will score like a Donaghy, but he will worry a full back

Awful night of football and am hoping bad play was all down to weather.

Would have put jimmers as man of the match myself.

Happy with the result but the standard of our forward play was not good enough bad weather or not. Roli does not perform to his best when in the full forward line but contributes more than his share when moved further outfield. We kicked a lot of ball in to forwards that were being tightly marked and in some cases even behind their men. More composure is required from almost all if we are to progress further. I would give man of the match to Callaghan because he was on his game for the whole match where other contenders drifted in and out.

Seeing as none of my work buddies were forthcoming and willing to work saturday [who can blame them?] I had to make do with my ear phones and Killian Whelan on KFM who incidently ended up Kildares top scorer with 2-6 [that never was], the amount of times Killian called the ball in the net or over the bar that sailed wide was unreal, in a really close game Killian could be bad for the ticker Killian do us a favour and stop giving Kildare supporters false hope wait till the ball nestles in the net and the umpire flies the white flag please!.

My overall impression listening on the radio was that it took Kildare ages to get to grips with the conditions, I thought it was going to be the Fermanagh game all over again when it took us all of 24 & 1/2 minutes to score.
How poor were Leitrim guys hard to judge on the radio?, so all in all did we learn anything new? it sounded like Kildare missed plenty of simple scores against stronger sides scoring opportunities will be much more scarce so need to be more consistent in that dept, credit to the backs they seem to have tightened up considerably after the Louth debacle.
You know something looking at Dublin yesterday I wouldn't be overly worried about drawing them out of the hat they still look like a side playing under the fear factor and the burden of expectation.
Cork need to be avoided at all costs, the rest in the hat for todays draw look much of a muchness.
Ulster football looks pretty tame these days Armagh will be tough but are hardly world beaters, so basically anybody but Cork will do, and we'll see where we actually really stand whether we have improved or just beat two mediocre teams in Antrim and Leitrim.

Leitrim were very poor- I actually felt really bad for them walking off the pitch at full time.. I rarely give a crap- must have been the weather palying with my emotions!

To be honest the weather kept Leitrim in it in the first half because neither side could hold the ball or complete passes....or shoot! Physically Kildare seemed a lot bigger.

Overall it is hard to read into a game with such horrible weather. Another team could have killed us in the first (very frustrating) twenty minutes though our full back line went on to be play very well. In the second half things seemed a bit more comfortable except for our shooting.

Performance wise I didnt notice much else through the rain though I do have the below points to make:

-Umpires were so embarassingly indecisive in the second half
-Myself and a friend of mine predicted there would have to be 10 min additional time. He gave two- laughable (I know the game was over at that stage but you have to be consistent game to game)
- Dermot Earley looked in agony in the second half? I couldnt believe he held out so long. With the match nearly won it was good to see him coming off so he didnt do any further damage to himself.
- I think Kildares second or third point was wide. Did anyone else see that or can confirm that?
- Hugh Lynch scored nice point at he end from outside of his boot..was from a huge distance too

made heavey work of very poor leitrim.

Poor football overall. Weather absolutley terrible.
Kildare done enough to win no more against a team that are truly div 4 standard.
Good to see Jimmers scoring heavily again but should have had a few more.
Amazing how Johnny will not revert to kicking frees from the hand on a dirty wet evening. He struggled from placed balls in both antrim games and again tonight.
Could have given smithy 15 mins for game time but maybe bad conditions and niggly injury could be dangerous.
Job done and a home draw would be ideal against anyone but Cork.

doyle has toe injury at moment. any notice booing of leitrim team when they came out for second half

Job done. It wasn't a day for fancy football and I wouldn't be reading too much into that game.

Plenty of room for improvement though. I thought we played better when O'Connor was introduced and I'd like to see us start with a target man on the edge of the square next weekend - possibly start Roli midfield with Dermot at 14 as he seems to be carrying a knock at the moment?

Leper and Morgan Flats won a load of dirty ball around the middle and both McGrillen and Kelly impressed again in the full back line. Good to see Kavanagh back to form. Hopefully Smith will be fit to play next weekend. Onwards and upwards.

Dreadful weather, bad football, good result. Did anyone see what started the goalmouth incident where all the yellow cards were handed out ?

If the third point you are talking about was from Paudi the it was over as I was right behind it.

Last night was all about the result, on a night like that when you can hardly see the far side of the field because of the rain then any win is good.

I await the draw tonight at 6:45pm.

Terrible weather but a great result which as we saw today is all that matters!

Would be worried about not scoring for the first 20 mins of first half and first 15 of second half as I think this would be severely punished by better opposition however this could just be down to the bad weather.

With each game I think there is progress being made and problems are being sorted gradually. Think we need to be pushed a bit more in the next round, cant always have the safe draw at home to what is seen as the "easier option"... for what ?? to progress onto the later stages and get a severe awakening!!

In the next round I would like a good competitive game in the next round maybe away from home..be great to get to croker for a day out!

Great win in dreadfull conditions, bring on Derry. If you asked anybody before the game for a scoreline of 1 12 to 0 6, you would have been very happy, why the negativity ?. We won

Dara wrote:

Happy with the result but the standard of our forward play was not good enough bad weather or not. Roli does not perform to his best when in the full forward line but contributes more than his share when moved further outfield. We kicked a lot of ball in to forwards that were being tightly marked and in some cases even behind their men. More composure is required from almost all if we are to progress further. I would give man of the match to Callaghan because he was on his game for the whole match where other contenders drifted in and out.

Agree with that assessment. It was terrible, people talked up Leitrim, talked up the weather, talked about no easy games i.e. remember the Louth game but Leitrim were terrible. To me they were a good club team (the population of Leitrim is 29,000, only got traffic lights last year, yeah, yeah nothing to do with it) yet could have been 1-6 up after 20 minutes. We only went ahead around the 30th minute.

Why am I so negative? Because I don't know where we are at, anybody who thinks we are settled are delusional. Our half forwards wasted huge amount of scores, some people pick Kavanagh as man of the match??????? he wasted at least 1-5, P O'Neill missed about 1-3. Players went into the match injured or got injured against a glorified club team and thats shocking.

We now face a tough away match with some key players not 100%. Tomas O'Connor needs to start, Roli needs to be moved out around the middle and Leper needs to stick around the half forward line (he started centre back yesterday???)

Stonecold, fair enough i see where your coming from, but always remember its easy to say you could do this or that if you are watching from the stands .Its different if your out on the pitch, yes they made mistakes , so what we won.Thats the important part. Kerry struggled through the qualifers last year to go on and win an all ireland, Dont think Kerry are too worried about the way they played as long as they won their games .
Get the buzz going, be positive.....................

I was very disappointed with our performance last saturday night. A better team would have had us dead and buried after 20 minutes. Our effort was 100% but unfortunately the quality was not. I think with all due respect Leitrim were the worst team I have seen Kildare play in recent times.

Terrible decision making, awful shooting, poor free taking and bad tactics were the order of the day for a lot of the game.

Thankfully Geezer mentioned most of these in his interview after the game and said we need to improve a hell of a lot to go further in this competition. I think we can improve and will against Derry but our forwards need a shot in the arm and an injection of confidence. They are afraid of their lives when shooting.

This 2-2-2 thing was exposed badly in the first half the other night. Time and again there were huge gaps between JD and Flaherty and the other half forwards and midfield. Our half forwards were funnelling back to pick up possession and dragging their markers back on top of our backs.
We persisted to carry the ball out of defence instead of delivering quick accurate ball and using the elements.

Look at the difference Tomas O Connor made when introduced!

The weather was crap, attendance was amazing and we got a 9 point win. Result is good but a big improvement is needed for Derry.

What a night for football. As has being said we would have took the score line before the game.
I agree stonecold we are not settled but the good thing is we are not settled and still playing in mid July. Lets see what happens this weekend as I still believe that this team has a big match in them.

Worked tirelessly in miserable conditions. I said last week that Kavanagh was too inconsistent, hats off to him, he showed a lot of confidence saturday night when we badly needed the scores.

It's piss or get off the pot time for the lads now against Derry.
We've yet to beat a top team under mcgeeney and this weekend is a defining one for mcgeeney and his reign.