Flanagan opts for same 15 for Fermanagh 

It shows the difference of perception inside a county, and out.

To those outside Kildare paying attention to the Tailteann Cup last weekend, the competition has opened up very nicely indeed now for Brian Flanagan’s team. They looked after their own business when knocking out one of the strong Championship contenders with a one point win over Offaly last Saturday, while Westmeath were also considered one of the favourites until they were outgunned in dramatic fashion by Wicklow a day later.

The bookies’ response was immediate and Kildare were made firm title favourites of the four remaining counties at an almost unbackable price.

It’s unlikely that anybody who has been following Kildare closely in recent years, or decades, will be so confident.

The reason for that is probably two-fold.

First up is that Kildare and expectancy have rarely been comfortable bedfellows. Often Kildare’s best performances have come when little has been expected of them. The pressure of being favourite is a different pressure to that of being underdog and how Kildare deal with this on Sunday, and then hopefully in a final, will be key to their chances of winning the Tailteann Cup.

Then there’s the record at Croke Park, which frankly isn’t good enough to be called dismal. The Croke Park pitch is maybe slightly bigger than a lot of pitches around the country but is the same goalposts and sidelines and yet for whatever reason, a succession of Kildare teams have gone weak at the knees as they come up along Jones’ Road.

The paucity of Kildare’s record at GAA HQ has been discussed numerous times over the years but shows no signs of improving.

Kildare have lost on their last six visits to Croke Park, they’ve won two of their last 17 games there, three of their last 23, seven of their last 35 and a win on Sunday would be just the 20th at the venue since the turn of the century, in their 66th appearance on that hallowed turf.

Of course to lift the Tailteann Cup, Kildare will not only have to win at Croke Park on Sunday they’ll have to win there again in three weeks. Winning on successive visits to Croke Park is something that Kildare have only managed to do twice since reaching the 1998 All-Ireland final, the last of those coming when Monaghan and Meath were beaten in 2010.

And yet, while all that matters to some degree, this is a fresh new team who should pay no heed to any of that history. They have a chance to write their own pages in Kildare GAA folklore.

In Brian Flanagan’s first year in charge, they are certainly on the right path. Or as James McGrath put it in the immediate aftermath of the quarter-final win over Meath:

“The team is definitely building towards something bigger, we are going somewhere now.” 

It’s easy to see why somebody of McGrath’s age would think like that. While the seniors have been starved of success for many years, the youngsters coming through, particularly those who played underage under Flanagan, know nothing other than winning.

They had their hiccups along the way but they played on Kildare teams who feared nobody and who mixed it with the best.

Converting that level of success at underage level to the seniors doesn’t happen overnight and there have been bumps in the road even during Flanagan’s first year at senior level. The defeat in the league to Offaly hurt, the Division 3 final defeat at Croke Park even more so, and maybe that’s why a one point Championship win over the same opponent could be so significant for this group. Flangan definitely thought so.

“That will be the making of us. They are the games you want to win,” said Flanagan after the game, before elaborating.

“Winning games by eight, nine, ten points is great but it’s comfortable then and you don’t really learn in comfort. We were very uncomfortable in the last ten or 15 minutes but that then requires you to dig deep and show character and composure. We have a lot of young lads on the team and that will bring them on no end,” he said.

Fermanagh will be very different opponents on Sunday compared to the side who so meekly surrendered in Newbridge in the opening round of Division 3 at the end of January. They overcame that slow start to be contention for promotion on the final day, just as they overcame losing to Carlow in Brewster Park in the opening round of the Tailteann Cup to reach the last four.

They actually topped their group despite lsing their first game by beating Longford and Wexford and they then held off the fast finishing Sligo in last week’s quarter-final.

Fermanagh are a team who carry threats all over the field and they have had at least ten different scorers in each of their last three wins. Although they have racked up decent totals in those games, 2-19 against Longford, 0-25 against Wexford and 0-21 against Sligo, on only two occasions, Conor Love (0-8 against Wexford) and Josh Largo Ellis (1-2 against Longford) has a player contributed more than four points in those games.

They are far from a pushover and nobody in the Kildare camp will be taking anything for granted but there is a chance now to live up to expectations and show that this team really is on the right road.

Unsurprisingly, Flanagan has opted for the same starting 15 that took to the field against Offaly for Sunday’s game, with the added the boost of Callum Bolton returning to the squad among the subs but at is offset by the absence of Ben McCormack.

Tailteann Cup Semi-Final Kildare v Fermanagh Sunday, June 22nd, 4pm Venue: Croke Park