Daunting, but exciting, year ahead for Kildare hurling

It’s very much in at the deep end for Brian Dowling’s Kildare hurlers on Sunday as they go head-to-head with Galway in the opening round of the Walsh Cup in Cedral St Conleth’s Park, but it’s the sort of opposition they’ll have to get used to, and very quickly, if they’re to thrive in 2026.

Between the Walsh Cup, Division 1B of the League and the Leinster Championship, upwardly mobile Kildare will be doing battle with Galway, Dublin, Wexford (all twice), 2024 All Ireland champions Clare, Kilkenny, Offaly, Antrim, Down and Carlow this year. Kildare supporters should be bouncing off the walls in anticipation and so should the players.

The big question of course is whether the Lilywhites can cling to their newfound elevated status. The league might offer a better chance of doing so than the championship where Kilkenny, Dublin, Galway, Wexford and Offaly lie in wait.

At least in the League, although two teams will be relegated from 1B, Dowling’s men have previous experience of Down and Carlow. Those fourth and fifth games of the series would appear to offer their best chance of survival but a home game against Antrim in the second game (they open against Dublin in Parnell Park on 31 January) will give them a good idea of how far they have come.

Like the Parnell Park fixture, Kildare will be rank outsiders against Clare in Newbridge in the third game and against Wexford away in the final round, so they really have to make the difficult trip to Ballycran and the home game with Carlow count.

There has been very little news emanating from the Kildare camp and no public challenge matches to give any clues into the panel Dowling is going with, but we do know that James Burke won’t be back from his ACL injury until April at the earliest. Conan Boran is another recovering from the that particular injury while David Qualter was fit enough to be named on the bench for the county final and will hopefully be available.

It seems unlikely there will be wholesale changes to Dowling’s panel, though the likes of Maynooth youngsters Tom Power and Oran Byrne and Clane’s Daniel Colbert may well come into the reckoning.

Having as close to a fully fit panel will be essential if Kildare are to thrive at this level, and they will have to build further on the strength and conditioning work done over the past couple of years. This is after all, ‘senior hurling’ now.

They have players very much coming into their prime in the likes of Simon Leacy, Cathal McCabe and Rian Boran, players who will be itching to test themselves at the highest level. Cian Boran, too, will be looking to build on his McDonagh Cup Hurler of the Year displays.

Once the league is out of the way, Kildare enter Leinster’s round robin for the first time. They welcome Wexford, Galway and Offaly to Cedral St Conleth’s Park with away games against Dublin and Kilkenny.

They will be targeting the Offaly game you’d imagine. The Faithful only won one of five games last year in the competition, crucially overcoming Antrim by five points in the final round to send the Saffrons down. The final round this year promises a similar mouth-watering encounter in Cedral St Conleth’s Park with Johnny Kelly’s men coming to town.

Inevitably, Dowling’s side will have to learn ‘on-the-job’ how to compete at this level and there will no doubt be some difficult and painful lessons to be learnt along the way, but if they can keep fit and retain their resolve when the doubts creep in, they can achieve their double survival mission and consolidate their place in the upper reaches of the game.