By Ger McNally
NFL DIVISION 2 ROUND 1
TYRONE 2-11 KILDARE 0-12
KIERAN McGeeney spent over half an hour with his team in the dressing room following the final whistle on Saturday night. Two second half goals from Tyrone gave them an opening round win as Kildare failed to hold on to their three-point half-time lead (0-6 to 0-3).
We’ll never know what McGeeney said to his team behind that door but to the press at least, he stressed the importance of taking chances.
Goals, or a rather a lack of them, have blighted Kildare during McGeeney’s tenure and the old failing was on display once more on Saturday evening. Kildare had managed just 19 goals in 28 league games under McGeeney before Saturday’s throw-in and it’s approaching three years since Kildare scored two goals in a league game – they’ve never managed three in a league game under McGeeney’s stewardship.
“It’s annoying. Before, there were times when I would have argued that we were scoring well but today we didn’t. I thought we worked some great chances considering how defensively Tyrone play. We moved the ball well inside, we got some good chances in front of goals but we kicked them wide, that is the disappointing thing, that’s the hardest thing to take,” said the manager.
Tyrone were much more economical in front of the posts, making the most of two goal opportunities when they were presented. Padraig O’Neill, Tommy O’Neill, although he may have been fouled as he was shooting, and Eamonn Callaghan all missed goal chances for Kildare. There were also half chances for Ronan Sweeney and Mikey Conway, both of which could have resulted in penalties. McGeeney insisted that this was the losing of the game rather than any flat atmosphere inside a sparsely populated Croke Park. “Ach no, no, no. Missing in front of goal gets us. We had three definite good chances and two half ones I think it is fair to say. When you are creating that many goal chances and not finishing them it’s going to cost you. It was a four or five point game, a goal at the right time is worth a lot,” he said.
But there were positives for the Kildare boss. He was pleased with the defensive performance and up front, Mikey Conway finished as Kildare’s top scorer with six points.
“To be honest I thought the defence was doing well up until the 45th minute to keep a team like Tyrone at that level. It was basically their number six (Peter Harte) coming from half back plus Penrose dropping deep and coming. I thought in the individual battles I’d be happy enough with the defenders. I’d be disappointed more with what happened up front, that’s where most of their attacks seemed to come from,” he said.
“There were a lot of positives from it too. Mikey coming back, Roli the same as that there. Our two corner backs Peter (Kelly) and Ollie (Lyons) were looking sharp as well. Fitz was doing a great job on Mulligan as well until he had to go off,” said McGeeney although Fitzpatrick may have a broken bone. The manager was delighted to see Conway back close to his top form.
“He was very good. He created a lot of opportunities for us so there were positives, it was just that they took two out of three goal chances and we missed five out of five, it’s going to cost you. Even the one in the first half, we had the open goal, things like that change the perspective, we just have to keep at it,” he said.
There were some who didn’t shine quite so brightly and McGeeney explained the substitutions of Tommy Moolick, who played three days earlier for NUI Maynooth in the Sigerson Cup, and Daryl Flynn.
“It was probably just the Sigerson game this week for Tommy and then Croke Park and a whole lot of other stuff. Don’t worry about him, he’ll be back, he’s a strong character. Daryl just wasn’t firing on all cylinders today.”
Although it was a disappointing way to begin the league campaign, McGeeney won’t be pressing the panic button just yet.
“It’s the first game of the league, I wouldn’t be panicking yet. It’s disappointing for us. There are games where I would have left and been annoyed at the players but the players played well today. Even when they went the goals down they still pushed on, there were probably a couple of penalty opportunities near the end and they still didn’t quit.”
Kildare travel to Clones this McGeeney finds defeat hard to stomach
KIERAN McGeeney spent over half an hour with his team in the dressing room following the final whistle on Saturday night. Two second half goals from Tyrone gave them an opening round win as Kildare failed to hold on to their three-point half-time lead (0-6 to 0-3).
We’ll never know what McGeeney said to his team behind that door but to the press at least, he stressed the importance of taking chances.
Goals, or a rather a lack of them, have blighted Kildare during McGeeney’s tenure and the old failing was on display once more on Saturday evening. Kildare had managed just 19 goals in 28 league games under McGeeney before Saturday’s throw-in and it’s approaching three years since Kildare scored two goals in a league game – they’ve never managed three in a league game under McGeeney’s stewardship.
“It’s annoying. Before, there were times when I would have argued that we were scoring well but today we didn’t. I thought we worked some great chances considering how defensively Tyrone play. We moved the ball well inside, we got some good chances in front of goals but we kicked them wide, that is the disappointing thing, that’s the hardest thing to take,” said the manager.
Tyrone were much more economical in front of the posts, making the most of two goal opportunities when they were presented. Padraig O’Neill, Tommy O’Neill, although he may have been fouled as he was shooting, and Eamonn Callaghan all missed goal chances for Kildare. There were also half chances for Ronan Sweeney and Mikey Conway, both of which could have resulted in penalties. McGeeney insisted that this was the losing of the game rather than any flat atmosphere inside a sparsely populated Croke Park. “Ach no, no, no. Missing in front of goal gets us. We had three definite good chances and two half ones I think it is fair to say. When you are creating that many goal chances and not finishing them it’s going to cost you. It was a four or five point game, a goal at the right time is worth a lot,” he said.
But there were positives for the Kildare boss. He was pleased with the defensive performance and up front, Mikey Conway finished as Kildare’s top scorer with six points.
“To be honest I thought the defence was doing well up until the 45th minute to keep a team like Tyrone at that level. It was basically their number six (Peter Harte) coming from half back plus Penrose dropping deep and coming. I thought in the individual battles I’d be happy enough with the defenders. I’d be disappointed more with what happened up front, that’s where most of their attacks seemed to come from,” he said.
“There were a lot of positives from it too. Mikey coming back, Roli the same as that there. Our two corner backs Peter (Kelly) and Ollie (Lyons) were looking sharp as well. Fitz was doing a great job on Mulligan as well until he had to go off,” said McGeeney although Fitzpatrick may have a broken bone. The manager was delighted to see Conway back close to his top form.
“He was very good. He created a lot of opportunities for us so there were positives, it was just that they took two out of three goal chances and we missed five out of five, it’s going to cost you. Even the one in the first half, we had the open goal, things like that change the perspective, we just have to keep at it,” he said.
There were some who didn’t shine quite so brightly and McGeeney explained the substitutions of Tommy Moolick, who played three days earlier for NUI Maynooth in the Sigerson Cup, and Daryl Flynn.
“It was probably just the Sigerson game this week for Tommy and then Croke Park and a whole lot of other stuff. Don’t worry about him, he’ll be back, he’s a strong character. Daryl just wasn’t firing on all cylinders today.”
Although it was a disappointing way to begin the league campaign, McGeeney won’t be pressing the panic button just yet.
“It’s the first game of the league, I wouldn’t be panicking yet. It’s disappointing for us. There are games where I would have left and been annoyed at the players but the players played well today. Even when they went the goals down they still pushed on, there were probably a couple of penalty opportunities near the end and they still didn’t quit.”
Kildare travel to Clones this Sunday for their second game of this year’s league.
TYRONE: Pascal McConnell; Aidan McRory, Conor Clarke, P J Quinn; Cathal McCarron, Peter Harte . Sean O’Neill; Michael Murphy, Aidan Cassidy; Matthew Donnelly, Peter Hughes, Martin Penrose . Stephen O’Neill .-. (.fs), Mark Donnelly .-., Owen Mulligan . (.f). Subs: Damian McCaul . for Quinn, ..; Ronan O’Neill .-. for Hughes, ..; Niall McKenna for Cassidy, ..; Sean Cavanagh for Penrose, ...
KILDARE: Shane Connolly; Peter Kelly .-., Ciaran Fitzpatrick, Ollie Lyons; Brian Flanagan, Tommy O’Neill, Eoghan O’Flaherty . (.f, . ..); Daryl Flynn, Ronan Sweeney; Tommy Moolick, Mikey Conway .-. (.fs), Padriag O’Neill .-.; James Kavanagh, Tomás O’Connor, Alan Smith. Subs: John Doyle .-. for Moolick, ..; Hugh McGrillen for Flanagan, ..; Eamonn Callaghan for Smith, ..; Morgan O’Flaherty for Fitzpatrick, ..; Robert Kelly for Flynn, ...
REF: Michael Duffy (Sligo)