Kildare v Meath

BearintheSquare wrote:

Gaa1928 wrote:

The vast majority of these players have just finished playing in the senior club championships, most of them at the latter stages, if that is not good preparation for inter county football what is ???

Id imagine theres a big gulf in class between senior club and intercounty. Some of the lads are even only from Intermediate clubs also. From our county final how many men were on the pitch for Kildare, a third?

14 of the starters play for senior clubs, 10 of them played in the semi finals of the senior championships involving our 4 strongest senior club teams

Botch wrote:

Thinking about it again I really think we were the better team. 5 big mistakes cost us big. It's a lot to come back from. Even after the 3rd goal we were still in with a big shout.
To be hit by 5 goals it hard to get over no matter who are. Even happened to the dubs.

I just hope we work on those weaknesses. It has been there a long time. And let's face it. Its down to players making footballing decisions. Defenders have to read the game as well as mark their man. If there is danger all plans go out the window and you decide to leave your man and protect the goal.  That same call has been there since the game began.

I think our defenders are playing in positions they don't really know. They should know but they play in different positions for their clubs. I think when you start mix and matching like that you have weaknesses. Especially in defence.

Do any of our defenders scare the crap out of anyone. No they don't. I do think hyland and ó grady are the best we have

Struggling to understand this. How can you divorce the '5 big mistakes' from the rest of the performance and come to the conclusion that we were the better team? Those mistakes are the main reason we lost the game. Did Meath make '5 big mistakes'?

And furthermore while those 5 mistakes cost us goals - there were lots of other mistakes that contributed to our demise (detailed brilliantly by ClaneLillywhite on page 5 of this thread - and that just the first half). Mistakes in defence and mistakes in the attack (points that should have been goals etc.) We need to call this out and stop comforting and deluding ourselves that we were the better team. We weren't.

Kildare are not good enough. Simple as that. They don’t want it enough. Football is not an obsession to the Kildare players. Such a disheartening loss to Meath and then you see Dan Flynn laughing and joking with Meath players after the game. Says it all for me.

Cassanata wrote:

I think we need to change the way we plan the year. The way things have gone the old attitude of it's only the league is a load of b****x. We should say to hell with the championship for the next 3 to 5 years. Concentrate everything we have on the league, getting to division 1 and staying there (which would be a huge ask).

At the moment we are going from year to year with largely the same set of players, not much focus on the league and knowing that if we make it far enough to face Dublin they are going to beat us. It's time to have a longer term plan with achievable goals and if we make it there then we can look at how we can beat Dublin.

In fairness 7 players made their championship debut v Offaly, and a number of players were cut/retired from panel this year, so it's not really the same set of players. Its a fine line in the league, going into the last game we could have been promoted or relegated. Next year will be more difficult with Meath, Mayo and Cork in Div 2, but looking at it now that is a better result for us than if we had got promoted this year, Div 2 is a more realistic challenge for us and we will get proper tests from those teams

Botch wrote:

Thinking about it again I really think we were the better team. 5 big mistakes cost us big. It's a lot to come back from. Even after the 3rd goal we were still in with a big shout.
To be hit by 5 goals it hard to get over no matter who are. Even happened to the dubs.

I just hope we work on those weaknesses. It has been there a long time. And let's face it. Its down to players making footballing decisions. Defenders have to read the game as well as mark their man. If there is danger all plans go out the window and you decide to leave your man and protect the goal.  That same call has been there since the game began.

I think our defenders are playing in positions they don't really know. They should know but they play in different positions for their clubs. I think when you start mix and matching like that you have weaknesses. Especially in defence.

Do any of our defenders scare the crap out of anyone. No they don't. I do think hyland and ó grady are the best we have

You're usually very much on the money Botch but I can't agree with your opening line here! If we were better we wouldn't have lost by 9 points. Sometimes the better team gets edged out by 1 but the better team never loses by 9 points.

Look we can convince ourselves of anything if we analyse it enough but sometimes you can't ignore whats staring you in the face and you just have to accept it, as painful as it is.

So today I fully accept that Kildare are ranked somewhere around 12-15 in the country.

It’s very disrespectful to supporters seen Dan Flynn laughing and joking to Meath player at full time after what happened in second half of game .

Newbridgeornowhere wrote:

It’s very disrespectful to supporters seen Dan Flynn laughing and joking to Meath player at full time after what happened in second half of game .

In the grand scheme of things it's the least of our worries. Some lads see football as a religion, their whole existence is based around being as good as they can. For others not so much. But that's the way life is we're all different.

The team is missing grunts for want of a better phrase.
Dider Deschamps was once called a water carrier because he did the dirty work which allowed the flair players to do their thing. We have no water carriers.

Yeah but Deschamps also managed to convince Pogba to carry a bit of water and won a World Cup.
It's about the only time he buys into the collective is for his country.

Our lads are never really a collective.

e.s.b. wrote:

In fairness 7 players made their championship debut v Offaly, and a number of players were cut/retired from panel this year, so it's not really the same set of players. Its a fine line in the league, going into the last game we could have been promoted or relegated. Next year will be more difficult with Meath, Mayo and Cork in Div 2, but looking at it now that is a better result for us than if we had got promoted this year, Div 2 is a more realistic challenge for us and we will get proper tests from those teams

Your point on the new players that came in this year is fair and I agree that Div 2 is a more realistic challenge for us next year. The point I am making is that we should:

1. Pick a squad of players who will be around for 5 years.
2. With an inexperienced squad getting into Div 1 next year is a big ask so make it a 2 year target to get to Div 1
3. Build calendar around being at peak condition for the League.
4. Once in Div 1 continue to make the league our number 1 focus in order to establish ourselves there and expose our players to playing at the highest level.

If we can do the above improved championship performances will come on the back of it. At the moment if our goal is to win an All Ireland it is about as realistic as putting a Kildare man on the moon. Lets set the goal to something tough but achievable and build from there.

Cassanata wrote:

e.s.b. wrote:

In fairness 7 players made their championship debut v Offaly, and a number of players were cut/retired from panel this year, so it's not really the same set of players. Its a fine line in the league, going into the last game we could have been promoted or relegated. Next year will be more difficult with Meath, Mayo and Cork in Div 2, but looking at it now that is a better result for us than if we had got promoted this year, Div 2 is a more realistic challenge for us and we will get proper tests from those teams

Your point on the new players that came in this year is fair and I agree that Div 2 is a more realistic challenge for us next year. The point I am making is that we should:

1. Pick a squad of players who will be around for 5 years.
2. With an inexperienced squad getting into Div 1 next year is a big ask so make it a 2 year target to get to Div 1
3. Build calendar around being at peak condition for the League.
4. Once in Div 1 continue to make the league our number 1 focus in order to establish ourselves there and expose our players to playing at the highest level.

If we can do the above improved championship performances will come on the back of it. At the moment if our goal is to win an All Ireland it is about as realistic as putting a Kildare man on the moon. Lets set the goal to something tough but achievable and build from there.

Do we keep the same backroom team for 5 years also

As lads say in Kildare at the moment as with a lot of other counties there is so many other opportunities for players be it rugby soccer travelling etc that the pull of playing for your county is not as strong as it was going back 30 or so years. As Kildare is not a strong footballing county ie winning or close to winning you can see why player feel that there are better off doing something else and with the training that goes into playing with the county why would they bother.

The league should be the target of all teams bar 2/3.
It’s the best competition, with teams of a similar level playing against each other every week.
It’s well on the way to being the number 1 competition.
This group of lads need a pre season of getting the shite knocked out of them physically and mentally.
If they can’t hack it then get rid of them. If they don’t feel embarrassed enough not to laugh their way off the pitch then get rid of them.
I’m a club Kildare member and we’re regularly told our money goes towards the upgrade on Conleth’s Park. That’s not happening for years. I suspect a goo wedge of my subscription goes into that senior team. I’m getting to the stage where I’m thinking they don’t deserve my hard earned cash anymore.

To be honest I am still trying to get over that debacle on Sunday, that really floored me, and I was in Enniskillen last year for the 0.8 to 0.6 defeat up there, I was in Ennis for that shit show against Clare in March, this feels worse. I would love nothing more than to have pride in my county, instead I feel embarrassment.

2021 National football league could start on February 20 /21

If only kildare had a goal scoring forward I still think we are better than meath

How bad are we , watching this

Club fan wrote:

How bad are we , watching this

Funnily enough this is exactly what we done to Meath in the first half last week. The only difference is Dublin are clinical and don't rack up huge wide counts and also don't pass up goal chances like we do.

Dublin also won't have a second half implosion and defend like u12s.

Meath are clearly atrocious and you could see that last week and it really puts what happened to our playing level in the 2nd half last week into perspective alright.

John_R wrote:

Club fan wrote:

How bad are we , watching this

Funnily enough this is exactly what we done to Meath in the first half last week. The only difference is Dublin are clinical and don't rack up huge wide counts and also don't pass up goal chances like we do.

Dublin also won't have a second half implosion and defend like u12s.

Meath are clearly atrocious and you could see that last week and it really puts what happened to our playing level in the 2nd half last week into perspective alright.

Dress it up with whatever deluded rubbish u want. They beat us by 9 points .i agree they are rubbish. How bad are we

What part of my post was deluded rubbish?

Meath were putrid last week in the first half just like tonight and the fact we only managed to go in 6 points up was criminal. We dominated them enough that if we had even an ounce of Dublin's accuracy or ability to get a goal we would have went in 10-15 points up. If you want to deny that was the state of play at half time then ok - but it's fairly obvious if we had any sort of clinical nature about us we had the possession, chances and territory to racked up a large lead.

I didn't say Kildare were amazing or as good as Dublin or that we deserved to win or were the better team over the full 70, so I don't why you are acting as if I made such a statement! I just think it's amusing how we also dominated Meath in the first half, yet because of who we are we didn't get anywhere near the lead a top tier team would have amassed by half time and also says a lot that we imploded to the level we did against what is clearly an awful team. Which does indeed, put things in perspective (about how bad we are!)...as I said in my first post.

Its very disheartening to think that team beat us by 15 points in 35 minutes football last week. We are going absolutely nowhere. They are very very average and still beat us by 15 points in a 2nd half.

Naas have produced 4 footballers to play county in last 25: years

Dublin have a defence, we have the worst defence in Leinster, please don't tell me we don't have 6 or 7 better defenders in the county?

Botch wrote:

Still cannot believe we let in 5 goals. And even after that we were still in the hunt. Meath were terrible. We were better I thought but obviously made too many bad mistakes.

Any anyone saying it's a good job we are not playing Dublin.  I think that's bull. We want to play against the best. Getting hammered or not we want to be getting there every time. We want to be cause we want to get to that level. So anyone glad we are not playing Dublin feck off to Leitrim.  

Think we dodged a bullet there.
Live from Carrick on Shannon.

Hard to argue with the Joe Brolly tweet.

As expected last night. Two questions. 1. If you're a Kildare player knowing that was what awaits you in the final, would you really go all in the semi-final. 2. If you're a Kildare player knowing that if you put in maximum effort for months on end that's what awaits you, would you bother trying or even training?

I wouldn't. It's a boring fix that has brought no joy in years. We can go on about our lads needing to do this and the county board needing to do that, but it will make zero difference.