MOST Kildare supporters I spoke to watched us completely dominate the game, kick over 20 wides, and concluded we are still brutal.
I disagree. And whisper it, but I think Kildare will win in Antrim on Saturday night.
Yes, some of our use of the possession we had was downright awful. But it was what Kildare did when they didn’t have the ball that impressed.
If we had gone out with that spirit and work ethic against Louth, we could be contemplating a Leinster final. For the first time since the first half of the Tyrone game last year, Kildare’s hunger for the tackle was back.
After conceding 1-22 to Louth, the priority was to shore up our defence, and even though we conceded 0-15 to a team that didn’t have that much ball, we were much better at the back this time.
It is an improvement the team as a unit can take credit for, for from the full-forward line back Kildare showed a work rate that was absent in the Louth game and for most of the league.
Brian Flanagan and Emmet Bolton, perhaps two of our worst performers against Louth, epitomised the new hunger for the ball and while their other talents may still be open to debate, the mental strength to deliver such performances under pressure speaks much of their mental strength.
Most changes in personnel worked. Peter Kelly had a solid debut, Andrew McLoughlin improved our rearguard, and Hugh McGrillen was at last somewhere back near the form he showed in the early part of last season.
Under a more lenient referee, we would have conceded a low tally, because Antrim rarely threatened scores from play.
Other signs were there. You could see it in the way Kildare negated Antrim’s short kick-outs. Another prime example was at the end of normal time. James Kavanagh was not having a good game, and yet he sprinted perhaps 50 metres and did enough to put Tony Scullion off kicking what would have been an Antrim winner.
It is a good sign of a team that even when they have kicked away an easy win at the far end, they still have the fortitude to cling on when the tide has turned.
At the end of normal time, the force was very much with Antrim and it seemed inevitable they would kick a winner. A few years ago, Kildare would definitely have crumbled in that scenario, but even though some of the mistakes that left us in that situation were downright ugly, the effort never waned.
There are still a lot of things wrong with the way Kildare are playing, but that effort and desire is something to build on.
If we could combine it with better use of the ball, we would be back in the top eight or 12 teams in the country.
Too many Kildare players are giving possession away too easily. Flanagan and Bolton, superb as they were under the breaks, took a couple of poor decisions on the ball. Even one of our very best players on the night, Daryl Flynn, was guilty of very poor deliveries to the fullforward line.
And of course, our shooting was by and large muck, even if it was hampered by a defensive Antrim team who worked perhaps as hard as Kildare did at the far end.
Considering the fact that we should have won the game and now face a tough trip north, it may seem optimistic to predict a Kildare victory.
However, it seems to me that the Lilies will have found out a lot about themselves from this game and that McGeeney, for the first time this year, will be closer to knowing what his best team is.
For instance, this game ought to end forever the debate about Eamonn Callaghan’s best position. In the first half, he was anonymous up front; in the second, when he was relocated to the half-back sector, he was one of our very best players. So too with Gary White.
Management asked Hugh Lynch to play a sort of sweeper role when Kildare lost possession in the middle. Despite a couple of mistakes, he was not playing badly, and yet was hauled off for White.
The decision showed that deep down management know that White can add a serious amount to this team, and he did when he settled into the game. His distribution, like Callaghan’s is better than the majority of his team-mates’, and if we pick a team for Saturday that sees both of them coming onto the ball around our own 40, we will at last be going some way toward compensating for Mikey Conway’s absence.
In the sad circumstances, Dermot Earley was superb, and he can only get better on Saturday with the game time under his belt.
Him and the in-form Flynn can dominate possession again, and though it is a considerable task to win in Casement, if Kildare start to click going forward, it is achievable.
A very winnable second round tie against Leitrim is a lot to play for. Saturday is another massive night in this team’s quest to redeem themselves.