Kildare GAA General Discussion Thread

klairondavis

Kildare (v Down, 1/2/2015)

1 Mark Donnellan (Maynooth)
2 Ciaran Fitzpatrick (Kilcock)
3 Peter Kelly (Two Mile House)
4 Mick O'Grady (Celbridge)
5 Ollie Lyons (Celbridge)
6 Daryl O'Brien (Carbury)
7 Eoin Doyle (Naas)
8 Hugh Lynch (Confey)
9 Padraig O'Neill (St Laurence's)
10 Eamonn Callaghan (Naas)
11 Niall Kelly (Athy)
12 Eoghan O'Flaherty (Carbury)
13 Darroch Mulhall (Athy)
14 Fionn Dowling (Suncroft)
15 Padraig Fogarty (St Laurence's)


Forward line looks a lot more threatening than last week with Kelly, O'Flaherty and Fogarty replacing Murnaghan, Murphy and O'Connor.

Nib

I like the look of that team. Midfield looks a little weak though, surprised to see Gary White dropped, I would have him in place of Lynch for his mobility around the middle.

Not one player from the two Newbridge clubs. That won't go down well. :pac:

klairondavis

Yeah Hugh Lynch looked appeared very slow around the field last Sunday. Chalky is hardly a flyer himself but he is a bit more mobile.

If everyone was fit I would have Moolick with either Paul Cribbin or Dan Flynn alongside him. You could count on one hand the number of kickouts last Sunday from either goalkeeper that landed beyond the 45 and were contested by two or more midfielders. The need to have a tall high fielding player out there isn't as great as it was a few years ago. A lack of mobility might not get exposed on a February Sunday in Newbridge but it will on a bigger pitch later on in the season.

Nib

Another NFL game thrown away by Kildare. 2-1 conceded in the dying moments. Tyrone league game from last year all over again.

Some dreadful individual errors and decision making can't be blamed on Jason Ryan.

Fionn Dowling was excellent, delighted to see him injury free. He worked so hard which is something you wouldn't normally associate with the Suncroft man.

roy rodgers

No leadership no midfield on the pitch again done us.
I don't think o brien will make the cut at no 6 he was the one who let made the mistake for the first goal.
can't understand why Kelly was taking off.
Lose next week and it's gonna be a fight to stay up

klairondavis

Have we learned anything from the Tyrone match last year? Down were limited enough and Kildare should have been out the gate with ten minutes to go. You would have said at that point that there was a lot we could take from the performance with a lot of key lads left to come back but that finish is just a disaster. Defeats in that manner are just so damaging for a team's confidence and Kildare are brittle enough at the best of times.

DARK-KNIGHT

Bitterly disappointed disastrous end to the game... Midfield just piss poor sad really looking back.

Hope Ryan can keep their chins up for the next game

glued

I know this is a thin arguement in Kildare but to have no Newbridge players in the side is a bit of a joke really. No winning mentality in this side and no bottle. It's the same old story really. You have to question the mentality of some of these guys to constantly crumble under the pressure time and time again.

Frankie Lee

glued wrote: »

I know this is a thin arguement in Kildare but to have no Newbridge players in the side is a bit of a joke really. No winning mentality in this side and no bottle. It's the same old story really. You have to question the mentality of some of these guys to constantly crumble under the pressure time and time again.

I don't get the Newbridge thing and the neediness of the clubs to be represented. There are no superstars being left out.

klairondavis

I can't think of anyone left off that should be there. I do think there are a handful of lads who started today who aren't going to cut it in the long run but we don't have our full deck to pick from yet.

Chalky played most of the game today so not strictly true to say there were no Newbridge players. Alan Smith will play when he is back fit.

roy rodgers

Moorefield won the last 2 championships and still have no one on the team a joke from management.

roy rodgers

Also there was no leadership on the field OR on the sidelines. Ryan shouldn't be in the stand trying to run things. It's not rugby we are playing

klairondavis

Moorefield's best player is Eanna O'Connor who isn't even from Kildare. Their spiritual leader is the Sligo senior football selector Ronan Sweeney. Daryl Flynn, Ross Glavin, Ciaran Kelly, Kevin O'Neill, the Lonergan brothers have all played senior football for Kildare in the past. Tom Corley, David Whyte and Kevin Murnaghan are on the Kildare panel at the moment. Ryan Houlihan and Liam Healy are on the Kildare under 21 panel.

The only one you could possibly make a case for is Adam Tyrrell who was tried last year in the O'Byrne Cup. I'm guessing with a young baby and his army commitments that he turned down an invitation to try out this year.

Nib

Blaming Jason Ryan because there's no Newbridge players on the team? Christ, I've heard it all now.

Moorefield were hammered when they came up against a half decent team in Rhode, who were subsequently hammered in the Leinster final. Sarsfields let a 5 point lead slip in the first county final game. Ronan Sweeney - a retired county footballer - was the standout player in both those county final games. Hardly awe inspiring stuff.

A fully fit Alan Smith would be the only certain starter from Newbridge.

klairondavis

Kildare's best player today is from Suncroft an intermediate club. Our only current player with an All Star award is from Two Mile House who were a junior club up until very recently.

It would be great if there was a strong pool of Newbridge talent that we could pick from. Kildare would kill to have players like Sos Dowling, Paddy Murray, Niall Buckley, Dermot Earley and Johnny Crofton in their prime available to them now. The quality of player simply isn't there in either club at the moment outside of O'Connor, Smith and White. Moorefield and Sarsfields to a lesser extent are two teams who are greater than the sum of their parts at this point in time. I say that as someone hailing from a small intermediate club with no axe to grind with either club.

Give it a few years and the wheel will have turned again. Sarsfields have had some very good minor teams and Moorefield had a strong showing at u21 level in 2014. The PBS are also looking forward to a Leinster semi final against Edenderry. By 2020 we will probably have Kildare supporters giving out that there are too many Newbridge players!

Nib

I'm the same as Klairon, no axe to grind with either Newbridge club. They have produced their fair share of county players over the years. Naas and Leixlip on the other hand should be much stronger considering their populations. GAA needs to be promoted more in these places. I know Naas had Callaghan and Doyle playing today but I can't think of many more over the last decade, same with Moolick and Leixlip. Maynooth is another town that should be producing more talent but it's not happening.

klairondavis

Most definitely. Johnny McDonald is the last Naas player I can remember before Leper. I suppose it's impossible for every area to be strong at the same time. Back in the nineties the team was dominated with Clane players: Lynch, Finn, McCreery, Murphy, Eddie McCormack, Paul McCormack, Paul McLoughlin, Denis O'Connell. I find it hard to think of any Celbridge county players before Mick Wright came on the scene. Sean McGovern was probably the last Athy player before Mick Foley. Now you could nearly pick half a Kildare team with Athy and Celbridge lads and Tomás O'Connor has being ploughing a lone furrow for Clane football. Round Towers are another club who have very little representation compared to twenty years ago.

The demographics of the county are changing and these places need focusing on. Naas winning the All Ireland Feile is an encouraging sign and those lads can't be let fall away. Leixlip with all their underage success around the turn of the millennium are the perfect example of what can go wrong when underage promise is not nurtured carefully. For a largely suburban county, we have always had a healthy pick from the smaller rural clubs. JTB are the obvious example producing so many great county players since the early eighties: the O'Donoghues, Declan Kerrigan, the Hurleys, the Cribbins, Flanagan, Flynn, McNally.

roy rodgers

This kildare team is going backwards. If we were 3 points up with 30 seconds to go with mcgeeny we would of won by 6.
And here we have Ryan on the radio stating that we win some and we lose some???? Bullsh1t we lost this from the side lines. Mcgeeny always won the last 10 mins of the game. Same story with Tyrone last year and now we are known as a weak team to the big boys.
I never liked Ryans tactics and today proved it. We don't have lads running forward anymore. There does be acres of space lying around and no one to pick it up. The simple basics of football is not listen too. There is some fine footballers coming through but I can't Ryan the man to lead them

klairondavis

I'm on the fence as far as Ryan goes. Sometimes I like what I see, other times I don't. How we perform in Championship 2015 will decide his future although he will do well to last as long as McGeeney did and reach the same level of consistency that was achieved in the three years from 2009-2011. We lost the first two league games in 2012 under McGeeney and still went up. It will be a tough ask now but we should have more than enough to steer clear of relegation even if we do lose in Navan. Laois are in disarray at the moment and will find it hard to pick up any points. Westmeath will be better under Tom Cribbin than they were last year but they are no world beaters. We will beat them in Newbridge.

If you look at the Kildare team since Ryan took over from McGeeney, he has brought players into the fold who were clearly not rated under the last management. Some of those names are now important players. Mulhall was never fancied by McGeeney, Seanie Johnston (remember him?) was preferred to Fogarty and Dowling, Tommy Moolick got a few chances back in 2011 league but didn't get a look in after he was hauled off before half time against Tyrone in Croke Park in 2012, Keith Cribbin was out in the cold after 2010 defeat to Louth, Fitzpatrick dropped off the panel after never being given any championship football.

roy rodgers

I hear kenny duane is the senior football manager for moorefield .
Good to see them using a home grown club man for the job for a change. The bank of McDonnells must be running dry

klairondavis

http://daraghoconchuir.ie/blog.php?id=2760

That doesn't make great reading.

I wonder are Ger Donnelly and Alan Dunney reconsidering the new positions they took up before Christmas! I don't envy their task over the next few years.

Nib

I love the way the county board always plead to the clubs for help when there's a debt to be paid. Clubs are already forking out for Hawkfield, now they want them to help pay this. When times were good the clubs were ignored and club players were treated very badly regarding county players availability and the fixture mess. We even had county players going to training camps in Portugal while clubs waited around for the championship to begin!

What an absolute shambles the whole thing is, we have - by some distance - the worst county grounds in Ireland.

Kildare, one of the richest counties in the country..

The monthly CB meeting tonight will be fun!

roy rodgers

In my opinion big test for Jason Ryan tomorrow. See can he bring the players back from last week's defeat. We lost the game last year against Tyrone in a similar fashion and knocked the stuffing out of the team for rest of the league and only found a bit of momentum again in the qualifiers..
A win by a great result but I'm not holding my breath.

klairondavis

It's time for this group of players to take some responsibility. They can't be excused as young and inexperienced forever. I wouldn't be confident but Meath don't look like they're in terrific shape either.

roy rodgers

Any word on the team??

klairondavis

My guess would be Conway replacing O'Brien, White replacing Lynch, the rest as you were.

We're more likely to see a much changed team for Westmeath on March 1. Smith, Bolton, McNally and Cribbin are likely to be back for that.

Nib

The team will be announced before throw in. There's a few late fitness tests to be carried out.

paulie21

No changes to the team

klairondavis

PBS beaten 1-10 to 0-8 by St Mary's Edenderry in the Leinster semi final. 8 Kildare lads on the Edenderry starting 15.

redarmy

Final score Meath 0-13 Kildare 0-11, typical kildare pissin a lead away again:mad: