Flanagan not going to rush injured cohort back into action

If you can confidently predict the fifteen who line up for Kildare on Saturday week in Omagh I’d suggest popping out to buy a National Lottery ticket during the week.

Kildare’s medium-term injury list includes at least six key players and when you add that to retirements and players stepping away (not to mention Sigerson Cup involvement), who’d be an inter-county manager at this time of year?

Brian Flanagan, though, insists he won’t be rushing players back prematurely and it looks increasingly unlikely that any of Darragh Kirwan, Jack Robinson, Colm Dalton, Jimmy Hyland, Ben McCormack or James McGrath will feature against Tyrone. Cathal Hagney and Shane Farrell remain more longer-term absentees.

“I get it is the National League in a couple of weeks, but you don’t want to fast-track anyone back from a hamstring injury and all of a sudden they’re gone for another six or eight weeks,” Flanagan sensibly pointed out on Saturday evening, particularly when he has a group that has impressed him in the last couple of weeks.

Others who missed out on Saturday such as Neil Flynn and Tommy Gill appear less serious and Flanagan hopes to have them available next weekend.

The Johnstownbridge man is encouraged by the impact of his fresh-faced newcomers these past few weeks and lauded them for coming good in the second half.

“We took our time. I thought we were very sloppy in the first half, I think we had eleven turnovers in the attacking half, and at least half of those were unforced, just poor decision making and poor execution. We’d a chat about that at half-time. I felt we were actually doing a lot right, there was only a goal in it and probably a bad goal to concede from our end. But if we tidied that up it would take a certain supply line off Dublin in terms of turnovers and fast attacks for them.” 

“When we got into the groove around 40 minutes, “he continued, “we put a couple of scores back-to-back and I thought the lads stuck the chests out, dropped the shoulders back and played with a bit of energy and confidence,” he told the Kildare Nationalist.

Flanagan name-checked Dara Crowley, Eoin Lawlor and James Harris as young players who have come in over the last two weeks.

He felt the long kick-outs in the game suited Crowley, playing in an unfamiliar wing-back position.

“I’d say 90% of the kickouts went long and down the middle and that suits Darragh, he’s a right athlete and he just needs exposure at this level, but himself, Eoin Lawlor, all these fellas, James Harris came into the half-back line the last two weeks, they’re really pushing hard, they’re fighting for starting places and there’ll be a few tough decisions in the next few weeks.” 

When you think about it, many of the younger players have the taste for winning, having won two Leinster Under-20’s and one All Ireland, while there’s a handful of players from the 2018 under-20’s as well. All of those have beaten Dublin in championship at underage level and they showed no fear of the blue jersey, albeit an experimental group as well.

Flanagan is impressed with their attitude.

“Regardless of age, there’s been a really calm, composed, approach to everything we’ve done. Nothing has been erratic, there’s no sense of panic amongst the group or anything like that. Maybe it’s that youthful enthusiasm about them. They’re coming in fearless and they just see it as an opportunity.” Bench impact was impressive as well, Kildare substitutes registering eight second half points.

“That’s definitely what you’re looking for in the O’Byrne Cup, you’re looking for depth, looking to build a panel, to unearth three, four or five new lads. Lads really put their hand-up when given the opportunity. Everyone who came in off the bench did themselves no harm at all.” 

Reluctant to swell Harry O’Neill’s head after his second inter-county goal, having scored in the Division 3 League final last year, Flanagan reminded us that “he’d about five goes at it before he got that one. Listen, he’s a great bit of stuff and wants to drive forward, wants to get himself in the attack. The new rules allow for that, someone else will sit into the back three. Delighted for him.” 

We asked about the approach to next week's final against Westmeath.

“You’ve a lot to juggle and I think you need to spread the minutes as best you can. Tonight, for example we just started a team that didn’t start Sigerson during the week. We put our Sigerson footballers on the bench. We held off the likes of Ryan Burke, Callum Bolton and a few others. This week it will be more managing through, hopefully they all come through injury free Tuesday and Wednesday and we’ll assess that coming into the weekend.” 

Your guess is as good as ours as to who lines up on Friday night but it’s good to have plenty of options, including those in the development panel who have been involved in the last fortnight.