Kildare v Meath

HauntedGraffiti wrote:

That is a straw man - tell me a better team Meath beat in championship in last 10 years?

The fact that we beat Mayo in a one off home match that completely took on a life of its own doesn't prove anything other than we have untapped potential if we could manage to get out of our own way.

The same year we were a whisker away from the AI final, Meath actually won a Leinster championship. Granted the final was a shitshow, but the record shows that they are the last team to beat Dublin in Leinster, from the semifinal that year.

Maybe we were the second best team in 2010s but it's a sad state of affairs: in most other decades the second best team in Leinster won at least one All Ireland.

Also, we definitely were not the second best team in the 1950s considering three Leinster counties won All Irelands and we were not one of them.

A couple of people are cherry-picking facts that suit the argument we were the second-best team in the past 10 years.
The bottom line is that Meath made five Leinster finals from 2011-20 and we made one. Any reasonable person would conclude that they were the second-best team in the province.

Still waiting for someone to point out Meath’s signature championship win of last 10 years. We also beat Kerry in the league under McGeeney.

When did Meath last beat Mayo & Kerry?

Also aside from 2017 humiliations we dished out, we must have beaten them half a dozen times consecutively under McGeeney.

As I say, there is no real argument that Meath were no.2, doesn’t stand up to any scrutiny. In fairness, I know Andy McEntee would be embarrassed anyone would even argue it.

If we make one Leinster final in 11 years while being the second best team in the province, I shudder to think how we’ll do now we’re third best. Or do you lads have some argument that we're actually better than the team that just destroyed us by nine points?

I think there's probably two different arguments ongoing here. The second best Leinster team and the second best team in Leinster. I was suggesting the former as to be honest it doesn't matter if you are the second or tenth best team in Leinster, neither will be winning it ever again as it stands. Indeed there's a case to be made for going out gracefully in qualifier years before meeting Dublin, so as to avoid going into the back-door six days after a 25-point cruxifiction

2nd best team in Leinster? The delusion of Kildare fans is both hilarious and startling. We’re a Mickey Mouse football county. For example when we beat an old Mayo team in a qualifier the fans and players celebrated like a smaller county would when they beat one of the big teams. Also what’s with these retiring players posting their retirements on social media? They basically make a tribute of themselves. The most hilarious one was David Slattery. He played with Kildare for 3 years and he posted a huge retirement tribute of himself. There was more dialogue in his post than there was in the Titanic movie lol. Johnstownbridge posted a tribute video to Keith Cribbin You’d swear these guys have numerous All Ireland medals won with all these tributes.

We're an okay football county. Nine of the 12 in Leinster have won less, only eight of the 32 in the country have won more. Both the 1990s and 2010s were relatively good decades and the last 10 years have seen a staggering rise at underage that would have amounted to more had the GAA not made sure Dublin won everything of late and we weren't geographically beside them. Could we do more? Absolutely. Could we be worse? Big time.

We’ve won 2 Leinster titles since 1956. Last All Ireland was won in 1928. We’ve done good at underage the last decade but it’s worrying how we are not able to translate that success to the senior team.

That still makes it one of more successful Leinster teams amazingly. As for not translating it into senior, it's not worrying at all. It's inevitable given what's happened. If we did translate that into success I'd be worried the world would have turned upside down.

If we’d been in any other province over last decade, we’d have a provincial title. We beat Cavan in league this year to relegate them to Div 3!

Unfortunately, we don’t get the luxury of being in Div 3 & still being able to compete thanks to Financial Dopers FC being next door. Which gets to crux of problem - our lads have no prospect of experiencing a day like Cavan & Tipp this year.

We can aim to be a Div 1/Super 8 team but lads might still say “So what? We still can’t win anything.” I’d be seriously concerned about a raft of players not committing next year.

One thing is for sure: we park Leinster from now on. I have no interest in games & won’t be going to them. They are simply fulfilling fixtures. Our season is league & championship from qualifier stage.

Incidentally, I’m convinced Kieran McGeeney before he bid us adieu would have made us a long-term Div 1 team a la Monaghan. In 2013 he retained Div 1 status & won an U21 title.

At the end of the year we sacked him & replaced him with Jason Ryan. Ryan took us to Div 3 & presided over historic humiliations against Dublin & Kerry - all of which I’m convinced did lasting & irreparable damage to that generation of Kildare players.

Unfortunately, also stuff that gives plenty of ammo to those who say there’s no problem with Dubs & other counties to blame. Totally wrong analysis but f**k me, the energy you expend explaining it.

Paddy Christie doing the rounds this evening trotting out an old chestnut: “When Dublin weren’t winning, people were crying out for intervention.”

Kevin McStay has been coming out with this rubbish recently as well. The amount of revisionism over this is genuinely astonishing - it’s like there’s collective amnesia in the GAA community.

Here are the facts: I attended all the Dublin-Kildare games between 1991-2011 and not one - NOT ONE - was preceded by an outcry saying Dublin GAA was about to go off a cliff.

What actually happened was virtually all of those games were Croke Park sellouts - they were events. They were seen as mouthwatering contests between two pretty evenly matched teams - exactly what you want in a provincial championship.

It seems to me because Dublin couldn’t beat Kildare & Meath for a few years in late 90s/early noughties, some people - largely in Dublin but also the likes Sean Kelly and Jarlath Burns (note neither from Leinster) - decided they were in absolute meltdown. What a joke!

I’m serious, this rewriting of history is virtually Stalinist - has to be called out.

TK has done a lot of research on this so he might know but did Sean Kelly and his committee do any cost/benefit analysis as to what their funding model for Dublin would do to the rest of the counties in the province.

Two weeks on, the Meath match is still putting me in a bad mood every time I think of it. I decided to watch it again and try to just objectively note down any mistakes or unforced errors.
Here's the notes if anyone cares. I'm not trying to run amateur players down - I'm consciously trying to keep these matter of fact rather than personal. Above all I just wanted to understand what went wrong, and how it might be improved. This will be quite a long post so I'll put what I think are the most important points in bold in case you can't be arsed reading it all.

Anyway, here's a list of Kildare mistakes:

1st min: Kevin Flynn hits a wide from a difficult position. He probably should have recycled possession.
2nd min: Kildare have a promising attack but a poor foot-pass from Ben McCormack goes over the endline.
4th min: A poor fist-pass from Shea Ryan while Kildare are on the attack, we're lucky not to lose possession. McCormack is dispossessed soon after.
6th min: Kevin Feely commits a foul in the Meath half, easing the pressure on them trying to build their way out.
7th minute: Fergal Conway delivers a poor ball to the square, ending another attack.
8th minute: Kevin Feely and Darragh Kirwan can share this mistake: a poor pass from Feely and a handling error from Kirwan receiving it. We lose possession.
9th minute: Mick O'Grady is dispossessed.
12th minute: Paddy Brophy bears down on goal but his attempt to fist-pass over the bar off his left drops short.
13th minute: Con Kavanagh has a foot-pass blocked down.
14th minute: Eoin Doyle gives a pass to nowhere - another promising attack ends.
15th: Kirwan hits a wide from a good position. At least it was good shot selection.
16th: Jimmy misses a scoreable free.  
WATER BREAK
18th: McCormack blown up for overcarrying.
18th: Bad shot selection - Feely kicks a wide from a difficult position.
19th: Brophy commits a needless foul in midfield and picks up a yellow. I've seen refs give black cards for that type of foul (although that would have been harsh).
20th: We lose possession again from a Matty Byrne foot pass, although you could argue we should give this mistake to Brophy, as he was beaten to it after starting in front.
21st: Conway dives in to give away a terrible free in the D. Maybe he thought he had to do it to prevent a goal, but there was a mass of Kildare defenders around, and Meath appeared to be going nowhere. The score is now 0-3 to 0-3.
25 min: A poor hand-pass from Feely almost loses possession. This is actually the third time I've noticed him giving a slightly sloppy pass under no pressure.
27 min: Kildare work their way into another promising attacking position, but a poor McCormack hand pass leads to another turnover.
29 min: McCormack makes a clumsy tackle and picks up a yellow, although in fairness I thought this was a harsh decision by the ref.
31 min: McCormack with a poor wide (I don't want to seem to be picking on him, it's noticeable that he's working extremely hard throughout).
32 min: Con Kavanagh with a hit and hope ball loses possession.
32 min: Beautiful football from Kirwan and Jimmy Hyland to put Kevin Flynn clear on goal. Should be an easy goal because the slickness of the move has left the keeper on his line, but Flynn takes an unnecessary hop, the angle is closed, and his shot hits the bar and goes over.
35 min: Kildare intercept a short kick-out, but Kirwan kicks wide from a scoreable position.
36 min: Kildare again have Meath under fierce pressure from Meath's kick out, but a silly foul lets Meath off the hook. It's 0-10 to 0-4.
HALF TIME: I want to make the point that we often say the gap to teams like Dublin is insurmountable. But even with all the simple errors above, if Kildare had taken the easy chances - I'm not even counting all the scoreable ones that went wide - and refrained from handing Meath a point with a headless foul - the half-time score would have been 1-14 to 0-3. I want to re-iterate that this is without doing anything special - just tapping over the easy ones and taking as straightforward a goal chance as you'll see. 1-14 to 0-3. Dublin were 2-13 to 0-2 up at half-time against Meath in the Leinster final.

36 min: Kevin Flynn breaks through on goal again. This is nowhere near as good a chance as the one before half-time, but still, he should either test the keeper or fist across to Kirwan, who is in a couple of yards of space in the square. Instead he kind of does something in between the two, his hand-pass dropping in front of the keeper.
37 min: From the counter-attack, Meath score their first goal. Mark Dempsey is a little slow closing down Morris, Brophy takes his eye off Costello for a second, and it's in the net.
38 min: Con Kavanagh gives a poor hand-pass under pressure - he's lucky not to lose possession. Meath do force the turnover soon after, a couple of Kildare players miss tackles, and Meath score their second goal. I would also put this down as a goalkeeping mistake for Donnellan.
39 min: Poor wide from Paddy Brophy.
42 min: The score is now 2-4 to 0-12. Another Kildare mistake, McCormack diving in and giving away a needless free, fortunately Meath miss it.
43 min: Poor shot selection from Kirwan - another wide.
44 min: Yet again, Meath are under fierce pressure from their own kick-out, but a silly push in the back from Matty Byrne lets them off the hook.
45 min: A similar situation to the last as Kavanagh gives away a silly foul in midfield.
45 min: Under little pressure, Brophy gives a hand-pass straight to Cillian O'Sullivan close to the Kildare goal and it's another goal. 3-4 to 0-12 now.
47 min: Brophy makes a handling error to end a Kildare attack.
48 min: Kirwan with a handling error this time, another attack over.
50 min: Daniel Flynn has a shot blocked down, but Kildare work a score from the 45, 3-5 to 0-13 now.
WATER BREAK
54 min: Kildare on the attack yet again, but Conway spills the ball in contact (you could divide the blame for this with Dan Flynn, whose pass to Conway wasn't great)
56 min: Because of the poor camera work/picture quality, I couldn't see who made this mistake, but a Kildare player took as ridiculous a shot as you'll see, way out near the Hogan and under pressure. It drops 10-15 metres short. You never, ever, ever see a Dublin player doing this.  
This creates a dangerous counter-attack but fine defending from Mick O'Grady in the D saves the day. However, Kavanagh is sloppy in dealing with the break, and slaps it to a Meath man, who creates their fourth goal for Wallace. 4-6 to 0-14.
57 min: Terrible shot selection from Paul Cribbin as his effort from way out on the right drops short (in case you think I'm being unduly harsh, Kevin McStay makes this point in commentary).
58 min: Kirwan is dispossessed too easily - another attack ends.
60 min: It's interesting watching the game back, but in case you think we were outplayed second half, Kildare are building attack after attack as our kick-out strategy at both ends is working close to perfectly. But time and again, simple skills mistakes and, more often, poor decision making ends the attack or in some cases creates a counter-attack. This time, Liam Power is rightly blown for overcarrying.
62 min: A poor delivery to the square from Shea Ryan is intercepted.
63 min: A poor hand-pass from Power almost gives possession away; seconds later, a poor kick-pass from Feely does.
63 min: Meath are under pressure from their own short kick-out for the umpteenth time, but Brophy commits a sloppy foul to let them out.
66 min: Kildare try to attack straight down the middle of the blanket defence and eventually Dan Flynn is bottled up and dispossessed. Meath have it easy on the counter-attack, scoring again to make it 4-8 to 0-14.
67 min: The next kick-out is too short and instead of building again, we have a hop ball on our own 21.
68 min: Another easy dispossession of a Kildare man (couldn't make out who because of poor picture quality).
69 min: Another instance of Meath struggling to work the ball out of their own defence, but Dan Flynn gives away an easy free to relieve the pressure.
70 min: Again we go straight down the heart of the blanket defence, Jimmy the one dispossessed this time.
71 min: Meath under pressure again in their own half, but again, we foul. Neil Flynn is the offender this time and gets a yellow (in fairness, you could argue it was a harsh decision, that the ball was there for him to pull on).
72 min: Daniel Flynn pumps a high ball to the square that's easily dealt with. Kildare are enjoying an ocean of possession but our two ideas seem to be a) launch it to the blanket defence on the edge of the square and b) try to carry the ball straight through the blanket.
74 min: Dempsey hits the post from a point chance inside the D. Meath make it 4-9 to 0-15 on the counter. It doesn't matter that Meath are winning very little primary possession; all their scores come from counter-attacks.
74 min: A messy tackle from Ryan earns him a red.
76 min: Another sloppy hand-pass in attack leads to a three versus two counter-attack and a fifth goal. A fitting end, really, as being punished on the counter-attack for unforced errors is the story of the second half.

Some more points to finish:
- I didn't pick it up on the first viewing, but David Hyland had a near-perfect game, defending superbly, using the ball well, and scoring a point. He did the basics right over and over again with none of the mistakes that are so common throughout the team.
- Mick O'Grady also did well. Apart from one incident in the first half where Walsh got out in front and scored, O'Grady completely snuffed out the Meath full-forward. When you're not caught up in the emotion of the game you notice that he's a very clever defender, often (legitimately) nudging players off their stride off the ball to prevent overlaps from happening.
- Matty Byrne played well in the first half. Jimmy Hyland had a good game and while he made a lot of mistakes, Darragh Kirwan did well in general and, being 20, has plenty of scope to improve.
- Aside from that, not a single Kildare player could be said to have played well. Our skill levels are simply nowhere near good enough, and I'm talking basic stuff. Very few of our players can tackle, and very few of them can be relied upon to not give the ball away with inaccurate hand passes and kick passes.
- Paddy Brophy features a lot in these notes but on second viewing I have sympathy for him. It seems he is being asked to play a Ciaran Kilkenny-at-centre-forward-playmaker role and he does most of this role very well. He was on more ball than any Kildare player and generally used it well. However, he is not a good tackler and he does not have defensive instincts. This cost us a goal and arguably two. He's had a good year but I still think he would be more comfortable in the full-forward line.
- Ben McCormack also pops up a lot in this but it was noticeable that he works ferociously hard for the team and he scored two good points.
- Ditto Kevin Flynn, who never stops; if he could improve his decision making and technique he'd be one of the most dangerous wing-backs in Ireland.
- I think O'Connor and Glavin deserve credit for the success of the kick-out strategy. This might seem ridiculous, but I also think they set up our defence reasonably well. We limited Meath to four points in the first half and looked very comfortable. There is not a defensive set-up around that will cope with the individual errors that cause most of Meath's goals.
- I think they also deserve criticism for the way we attack. While individual errors are again the biggest issue here, there was no structure to the way we attempted to convert our overwhelming domination of possession. Kildare's attack has no width and no wit and is far less than the sum of its parts.
- But the final criticism I want to re-iterate is that Kildare players in general do not consistently do the basics right. I think a focus on skills could improve the team in the same way Donie Buckley helped improve Mayo.

I want to finish on a positive. If we could cut out some of our simple mistakes and improve our tackling and our ability to think clearly under pressure we would be a seriously dangerous football team. These notes may seem overly critical but I think they show the problems are fixable. It's also too easy an out to say Kildare players don't care, don't have pride in the jersey, etc. I do think we need to toughen up but it's clear that most of our players try hard. I posted straight after the game that we're soft but I think now that this is too simplistic and I'm sorry I said it. I think the issue is more that mistake after demoralising mistake eventually affects their confidence.

If we get the basics right, there is no reason the team can't improve dramatically next year, particularly if the likes of Dan Flynn and Paul Cribbin get a clear run at it and we supplement the squad with more of our promising young players.

Cill Dara Abu.

Ohtoohtobe wrote:

Two weeks on, the Meath match is still putting me in a bad mood every time I think of it. I decided to watch it again and try to just objectively note down any mistakes or unforced errors.
Here's the notes if anyone cares. I'm not trying to run amateur players down - I'm consciously trying to keep these matter of fact rather than personal. Above all I just wanted to understand what went wrong, and how it might be improved. This will be quite a long post so I'll put what I think are the most important points in bold in case you can't be arsed reading it all.

Anyway, here's a list of Kildare mistakes:

1st min: Kevin Flynn hits a wide from a difficult position. He probably should have recycled possession.
2nd min: Kildare have a promising attack but a poor foot-pass from Ben McCormack goes over the endline.
4th min: A poor fist-pass from Shea Ryan while Kildare are on the attack, we're lucky not to lose possession. McCormack is dispossessed soon after.
6th min: Kevin Feely commits a foul in the Meath half, easing the pressure on them trying to build their way out.
7th minute: Fergal Conway delivers a poor ball to the square, ending another attack.
8th minute: Kevin Feely and Darragh Kirwan can share this mistake: a poor pass from Feely and a handling error from Kirwan receiving it. We lose possession.
9th minute: Mick O'Grady is dispossessed.
12th minute: Paddy Brophy bears down on goal but his attempt to fist-pass over the bar off his left drops short.
13th minute: Con Kavanagh has a foot-pass blocked down.
14th minute: Eoin Doyle gives a pass to nowhere - another promising attack ends.
15th: Kirwan hits a wide from a good position. At least it was good shot selection.
16th: Jimmy misses a scoreable free.  
WATER BREAK
18th: McCormack blown up for overcarrying.
18th: Bad shot selection - Feely kicks a wide from a difficult position.
19th: Brophy commits a needless foul in midfield and picks up a yellow. I've seen refs give black cards for that type of foul (although that would have been harsh).
20th: We lose possession again from a Matty Byrne foot pass, although you could argue we should give this mistake to Brophy, as he was beaten to it after starting in front.
21st: Conway dives in to give away a terrible free in the D. Maybe he thought he had to do it to prevent a goal, but there was a mass of Kildare defenders around, and Meath appeared to be going nowhere. The score is now 0-3 to 0-3.
25 min: A poor hand-pass from Feely almost loses possession. This is actually the third time I've noticed him giving a slightly sloppy pass under no pressure.
27 min: Kildare work their way into another promising attacking position, but a poor McCormack hand pass leads to another turnover.
29 min: McCormack makes a clumsy tackle and picks up a yellow, although in fairness I thought this was a harsh decision by the ref.
31 min: McCormack with a poor wide (I don't want to seem to be picking on him, it's noticeable that he's working extremely hard throughout).
32 min: Con Kavanagh with a hit and hope ball loses possession.
32 min: Beautiful football from Kirwan and Jimmy Hyland to put Kevin Flynn clear on goal. Should be an easy goal because the slickness of the move has left the keeper on his line, but Flynn takes an unnecessary hop, the angle is closed, and his shot hits the bar and goes over.
35 min: Kildare intercept a short kick-out, but Kirwan kicks wide from a scoreable position.
36 min: Kildare again have Meath under fierce pressure from Meath's kick out, but a silly foul lets Meath off the hook. It's 0-10 to 0-4.
HALF TIME: I want to make the point that we often say the gap to teams like Dublin is insurmountable. But even with all the simple errors above, if Kildare had taken the easy chances - I'm not even counting all the scoreable ones that went wide - and refrained from handing Meath a point with a headless foul - the half-time score would have been 1-14 to 0-3. I want to re-iterate that this is without doing anything special - just tapping over the easy ones and taking as straightforward a goal chance as you'll see. 1-14 to 0-3. Dublin were 2-13 to 0-2 up at half-time against Meath in the Leinster final.

36 min: Kevin Flynn breaks through on goal again. This is nowhere near as good a chance as the one before half-time, but still, he should either test the keeper or fist across to Kirwan, who is in a couple of yards of space in the square. Instead he kind of does something in between the two, his hand-pass dropping in front of the keeper.
37 min: From the counter-attack, Meath score their first goal. Mark Dempsey is a little slow closing down Morris, Brophy takes his eye off Costello for a second, and it's in the net.
38 min: Con Kavanagh gives a poor hand-pass under pressure - he's lucky not to lose possession. Meath do force the turnover soon after, a couple of Kildare players miss tackles, and Meath score their second goal. I would also put this down as a goalkeeping mistake for Donnellan.
39 min: Poor wide from Paddy Brophy.
42 min: The score is now 2-4 to 0-12. Another Kildare mistake, McCormack diving in and giving away a needless free, fortunately Meath miss it.
43 min: Poor shot selection from Kirwan - another wide.
44 min: Yet again, Meath are under fierce pressure from their own kick-out, but a silly push in the back from Matty Byrne lets them off the hook.
45 min: A similar situation to the last as Kavanagh gives away a silly foul in midfield.
45 min: Under little pressure, Brophy gives a hand-pass straight to Cillian O'Sullivan close to the Kildare goal and it's another goal. 3-4 to 0-12 now.
47 min: Brophy makes a handling error to end a Kildare attack.
48 min: Kirwan with a handling error this time, another attack over.
50 min: Daniel Flynn has a shot blocked down, but Kildare work a score from the 45, 3-5 to 0-13 now.
WATER BREAK
54 min: Kildare on the attack yet again, but Conway spills the ball in contact (you could divide the blame for this with Dan Flynn, whose pass to Conway wasn't great)
56 min: Because of the poor camera work/picture quality, I couldn't see who made this mistake, but a Kildare player took as ridiculous a shot as you'll see, way out near the Hogan and under pressure. It drops 10-15 metres short. You never, ever, ever see a Dublin player doing this.  
This creates a dangerous counter-attack but fine defending from Mick O'Grady in the D saves the day. However, Kavanagh is sloppy in dealing with the break, and slaps it to a Meath man, who creates their fourth goal for Wallace. 4-6 to 0-14.
57 min: Terrible shot selection from Paul Cribbin as his effort from way out on the right drops short (in case you think I'm being unduly harsh, Kevin McStay makes this point in commentary).
58 min: Kirwan is dispossessed too easily - another attack ends.
60 min: It's interesting watching the game back, but in case you think we were outplayed second half, Kildare are building attack after attack as our kick-out strategy at both ends is working close to perfectly. But time and again, simple skills mistakes and, more often, poor decision making ends the attack or in some cases creates a counter-attack. This time, Liam Power is rightly blown for overcarrying.
62 min: A poor delivery to the square from Shea Ryan is intercepted.
63 min: A poor hand-pass from Power almost gives possession away; seconds later, a poor kick-pass from Feely does.
63 min: Meath are under pressure from their own short kick-out for the umpteenth time, but Brophy commits a sloppy foul to let them out.
66 min: Kildare try to attack straight down the middle of the blanket defence and eventually Dan Flynn is bottled up and dispossessed. Meath have it easy on the counter-attack, scoring again to make it 4-8 to 0-14.
67 min: The next kick-out is too short and instead of building again, we have a hop ball on our own 21.
68 min: Another easy dispossession of a Kildare man (couldn't make out who because of poor picture quality).
69 min: Another instance of Meath struggling to work the ball out of their own defence, but Dan Flynn gives away an easy free to relieve the pressure.
70 min: Again we go straight down the heart of the blanket defence, Jimmy the one dispossessed this time.
71 min: Meath under pressure again in their own half, but again, we foul. Neil Flynn is the offender this time and gets a yellow (in fairness, you could argue it was a harsh decision, that the ball was there for him to pull on).
72 min: Daniel Flynn pumps a high ball to the square that's easily dealt with. Kildare are enjoying an ocean of possession but our two ideas seem to be a) launch it to the blanket defence on the edge of the square and b) try to carry the ball straight through the blanket.
74 min: Dempsey hits the post from a point chance inside the D. Meath make it 4-9 to 0-15 on the counter. It doesn't matter that Meath are winning very little primary possession; all their scores come from counter-attacks.
74 min: A messy tackle from Ryan earns him a red.
76 min: Another sloppy hand-pass in attack leads to a three versus two counter-attack and a fifth goal. A fitting end, really, as being punished on the counter-attack for unforced errors is the story of the second half.

Some more points to finish:
- I didn't pick it up on the first viewing, but David Hyland had a near-perfect game, defending superbly, using the ball well, and scoring a point. He did the basics right over and over again with none of the mistakes that are so common throughout the team.
- Mick O'Grady also did well. Apart from one incident in the first half where Walsh got out in front and scored, O'Grady completely snuffed out the Meath full-forward. When you're not caught up in the emotion of the game you notice that he's a very clever defender, often (legitimately) nudging players off their stride off the ball to prevent overlaps from happening.
- Matty Byrne played well in the first half. Jimmy Hyland had a good game and while he made a lot of mistakes, Darragh Kirwan did well in general and, being 20, has plenty of scope to improve.
- Aside from that, not a single Kildare player could be said to have played well. Our skill levels are simply nowhere near good enough, and I'm talking basic stuff. Very few of our players can tackle, and very few of them can be relied upon to not give the ball away with inaccurate hand passes and kick passes.
- Paddy Brophy features a lot in these notes but on second viewing I have sympathy for him. It seems he is being asked to play a Ciaran Kilkenny-at-centre-forward-playmaker role and he does most of this role very well. He was on more ball than any Kildare player and generally used it well. However, he is not a good tackler and he does not have defensive instincts. This cost us a goal and arguably two. He's had a good year but I still think he would be more comfortable in the full-forward line.
- Ben McCormack also pops up a lot in this but it was noticeable that he works ferociously hard for the team and he scored two good points.
- Ditto Kevin Flynn, who never stops; if he could improve his decision making and technique he'd be one of the most dangerous wing-backs in Ireland.
- I think O'Connor and Glavin deserve credit for the success of the kick-out strategy. This might seem ridiculous, but I also think they set up our defence reasonably well. We limited Meath to four points in the first half and looked very comfortable. There is not a defensive set-up around that will cope with the individual errors that cause most of Meath's goals.
- I think they also deserve criticism for the way we attack. While individual errors are again the biggest issue here, there was no structure to the way we attempted to convert our overwhelming domination of possession. Kildare's attack has no width and no wit and is far less than the sum of its parts.
- But the final criticism I want to re-iterate is that Kildare players in general do not consistently do the basics right. I think a focus on skills could improve the team in the same way Donie Buckley helped improve Mayo.

I want to finish on a positive. If we could cut out some of our simple mistakes and improve our tackling and our ability to think clearly under pressure we would be a seriously dangerous football team. These notes may seem overly critical but I think they show the problems are fixable. It's also too easy an out to say Kildare players don't care, don't have pride in the jersey, etc. I do think we need to toughen up but it's clear that most of our players try hard. I posted straight after the game that we're soft but I think now that this is too simplistic and I'm sorry I said it. I think the issue is more that mistake after demoralising mistake eventually affects their confidence.

If we get the basics right, there is no reason the team can't improve dramatically next year, particularly if the likes of Dan Flynn and Paul Cribbin get a clear run at it and we supplement the squad with more of our promising young players.

Cill Dara Abu.

Dan Flynn and Paul Cribbin had poor Kildare  season .

Why does team centre around Dan Flynn  ,

Kirwan scored 0-14 in league and championship in 4 games
Jimmy Hyland  0-21 in league and championship
Dan Flynn 1-8 in league and championship in 7 games
Paul Cribbin 0-8 in league and championship in 9:games

Dan Flynn was very unhappy with being dropped for Meath

Yeah I agree Flynn and Cribbin had poor seasons. I’m just saying if they were injury free and in 2018 form they’d strengthen us. Big ifs though.

Ohtoohtobe wrote:

Yeah I agree Flynn and Cribbin had poor seasons. I’m just saying if they were injury free and in 2018 form they’d strengthen us. Big ifs though.

Dan Flynn was injury free for frist 5 games of league still scored only. 1-7 failed to score against Clare and Laois

Paul Cribbin needs a lot soul searching

Fair play Ohtobe , a lot of patience required for that post and some really interesting points coming out of it.

There is so much we can improve on ourselves that has nothing to do with Dublin or anyone else. Dublin's unfair advantages and dominance provide the perfect distraction, dare I say excuse, for Kildare football and we're holding ourselves back by focusing on it.

I said it before that a lot of Kildare's problem and clubs in Kildare is doing the basics skill properly. This goes back to the coaching starting from the kids all the way up to adults. I see it in my own club that more and more emphasis is on fitness S&C etc. from under 6 or what ever they start with now to say under 16 should be all about the football let those kids play freely maybe what we need in this county is a completely over hall in our coaching structures.

I used to look at Dublin Teams and think how many of our lads would get on their Team.. Looking at their Team and Subs tonight, none of our Lads make the Panel.
How many players from other Counties would get on that Dublin Team ?.

Still laughing at last night. The desperation to try and build it up as something big and an event to tune into was hilarious. Dublin were awful by their standards, and still didn't need to get beyond second gear to win by whatever it was. Cavan were out on their feet after 30 minutes. Sean Cavanagh said he felt at half-time they'd do what they did to Donegal. RTE on their site said Cavan hung in and Dublin just pulled away in the end. And there are still people saying if you put Dublin in Ulster the problem would be solved. It's hilarious. I hope they win the final by 30 points and they will as well if they want.

GAA don't have the will to recognise the issue with the president, director-general, director of comms and GPA president all Dublin fans. They still can't even see an issue, never mind try and fix it and it's already too late. Counties need to start pulling out, save their money and use it on clubs rather than to fund a fix. Bernard Brogan said yesterday others need to work harder. It's really a joke and a funny one.

https://www.rte.ie/sport/gaa/2020/1206/1182664-help-other-counties-before-its-too-late-says-kelly/

I couldn't quite believe my eyes reading this article about what Sean Kelly said...

Writing on Twitter, the former president said: "Having been centrally involved in getting the funding to strengthen GAA in Dublin, which @Dubs_gaa has used brilliantly, I can say 'mission accomplished', so why continue with the mission??

"Time for new mission - help other counties before it’s too late!"

This is the same Sean Kelly who suggested throwing money at Kildare to shut them up over the whole Newbridge or Nowhere saga. An absolute conman who should be appearing before the Public Accounts Committee for his misuse of public funds during his tenure.

Football is in a sorry state. It'll be a cold day in hell before I put my hand in my pocket for a senior intercounty game. Club and minor/U20 only from now on.

Might have to divide Mayo next,