2025 gives Kildare the ideal platform to push on from

It’s September 2024 and Brian Flanagan is surveying the landscape of Kildare football with the local media shortly after his appointment.

Kildare have just slipped winless into Division 3 of the league, had barely put up a fight against Louth in Leinster and exited the Tailteann Cup with a whimper to neighbours Laois. The dream team’s reign had turned into a nightmare, not least for themselves.

Flanagan’s clarity and vision was a breath of fresh air.

Kildare had a thriving club game, the schools were strong and talented teams were being produced at underage level.

Strength and conditioning was letting us down in transitioning those players to senior inter-county, he told us.

Another issue: confidence, or lack thereof. He linked confidence to momentum.

“There’ll be a new energy about it, a new focus. With every new group there’s a new dynamic. So rather than looking backwards we’re very much focused on that and looking to gather momentum throughout the year. When momentum goes for you, confidence goes for you, you can feed off that.” 

Then the reality check. Acknowledgement of a low starting base. The reminder that this will be a re-build project, a key factor he had agreed with the county board.

“The four years was very important to me. I do believe it will take four years to get the team to the point where we can be very competitive again with the top sides in the country. That simplified version is what I want to achieve over the four years.” Not that he was granting himself a honeymoon period. Progress would be measured and progress needed to be made.

“We understand the steps that need to be taken to get us along the way, but it will take time.” 

Getting out of Division 3 would surely be the key priority, almost a ‘must have’, in year one? A straight-bat response.

“I know everybody will look at Division 3 as a very tangible and realistic goal, but we also want to be patient with this team. We also want to allow them time. We are going to be transitioning players in. We are going to have a new team and a new group; the chances are there’ll be a lot of new faces and debutants.” That transition “doesn’t come without risk,” he reminded us, “and if we hit one or two wobbles along the way, but we’re trying to do the right things, then I’m okay with that. I think it will serve us well over the long term. As long as we make inroads in terms of the team and the connection (with supporters) and everything else we’re trying to build then we’ll be happy.” Roll forward sixteen months and it’s fair to say Flanagan has every right to be happy with progress made. Promotion from Division 3 and after a narrow loss to Louth in Leinster, a momentum-building Tailteann Cup triumph. Wobbles along the way but progress without doubt.

The panel transition was significant as he predicted. Eleven of the thirty-six players who donned the white jersey were doing so for the first time as seniors. Ryan Sinkey, Colm Dalton and James McGrath, from Flanno’s under-20 winning team, each made fourteen starts. Fresh-faced mainstays. In all, there were fourteen who hadn’t been there the year before.

Kildare started the league like a train, blowing Fermanagh and Laois away in the new fortress of Cedral St Conleth’s Park, a low-key win in Sligo where Kildare rarely thrive, and a routine dismantling of a troubled Leitrim.

Then came the wobbles. Ennis. Graveyard of Kildare teams. Clinging to a win they may not have deserved, Ryan Burke is hooshed over the sideline. Illegally we thought. But weak defending allows Clare to break our lines and Keelan Sexton applies the finish to the net. A first blip.

Tullamore, Paddy’s weekend, a chance for redemption, but a sluggish display has the doubters doubting. A throwback performance but not in a good way. Kildare looked vulnerable to breaking half-backs and no one better than Cormac Egan to twist the knife.

That defeat brought it to the final day. Permutations and combinations with Kildare, Offaly and Clare in the mix and Fermanagh chasing miracles.

An almost-relegated Antrim came to Newbridge and the Saffrons proved stubborn, a Fionn Nagle goal seven minutes from time narrowing the gap to a nervy four points. But Kildare reeled off the last seven points of a chaotic match and with Clare beating Offaly the three protagonists are level on points.

In a ‘mini league’ scenario, Kildare would have finished third having lost to the other two while Clare would have been top after two wins. But scoring difference in all games in the division applied and it was Kildare and Offaly who secured Division 2 status.

Kildare needed a Croke Park win, but they spurned that opportunity in the final, their 50% shooting accuracy damning them. That and a failure to curb those flying Offaly half-backs again. Offaly climbed the steps after a two-point win.

Promotion was never going to be enough to clinch a Sam Maguire place, so Kildare had eyes on a Leinster Final appearance with Dublin and Meath on the opposite side.

Westmeath, the first provincial visitors to Newbridge in 30 years, with Ray Connellan dominating the skies looked the more likely when going in 0-12 to 1-8 up at half-time, Alex Beirne’s goal keeping Kildare in the game.

But Connellan’s early second half injury allowed Kevin Feely to soar to the skies unhindered and David Hyland’s fingertips diverted a wayward Ben McCormack shot to the net to set up a big win for Kildare and Flanagan.

Two weeks later, though, another of those wobbles, and this time a fatal one. Louth ended our Leinster involvement again. Unlike the year previously Kildare did perform, but the inability to find the net from a clutch of chances, coupled with that Achilles heel of being open to attacks from deep (Craig Lennon this time), and Louth’s greater maturity in key moments saw us lose out by three.

Kildare approached the Tailteann professionally, and that comes from the top. No moping. Thirty-six points against Leitrim in Newbridge, a Daniel Flynn tour-de-force in Clonmel and a flawed, chaotic win over Sligo in the Hyde saw them through to the Quarter Finals.

That last eight clash with Offaly could have been the final. A final game of the year in Newbridge and Flanno’s men maintained their 100% record there, finally getting the measure of the Faithful third time around. McGrath’s goal the crucial score.

“We are going somewhere now,” roared the Kildare Nationalist headline. The only worry was that “somewhere” was Croke Park. Finally, however, Flanagan’s side crushed the HQ hoodoo, thanks in part to a brilliant Brian McLoughlin cameo, beating Fermanagh by seven to set up a final with Limerick.

Playing football in July is a novelty these days but it would mean nothing without winning. Feely referenced the rare but positive vibes of finishing the season on a winning note, collecting a trophy after another hectic game saw Kildare come out on top by two.

Flanagan hailed it as “only the beginning” for this panel, and the road gets steeper in 2026, with Division 2 and Sam Maguire football to look forward to. Baby steps, but there’s a definite sense of renewal about Kildare football as we head into year 2 of Flanagan’s project.