Kildare in need of a result as they head to Nowlan Park
Muiris Curtin lines up a shot during the Walsh Shield tie between Kildare and Kilkenny earlier this year Photo: James Lawlor
Brian Dowling followed in the footsteps of fellow county men Andy Comerford and David Herity at the helm of the Lilywhites and of course the initiative that saw Naas playing in the Kilkenny underage competitions is credited as a key factor in the development of the game in the dominant county town club.
Ahead of Saturday’s trip to his home county to face Derek Lyng’s side (6.pm), Dowling spoke about the mixed emotions of bringing a side to face his own people in Nowlan Park.
“It’s a strange one,” he told us.
“When I took this job, I didn’t think I’d be taking Kildare into Nowlan Park to take on Kilkenny. I said it after the Walsh Shield game (in January), I’m a true Kilkenny man, I’ll always be a Kilkenny man.” His current focus is on further developing his current charges, however.
“For seventy minutes I’m a Kildare man. I don’t know whether my family will be supporting me or Kilkenny. I’ve three young lads I don’t know what jersey they’ll be wearing but I want to get points on the board so for those seventy minutes it’s all Kildare for me.”
Unsurprisingly, there is very little history of competitive action between the counties at senior level. They’ve never met in either the league or the senior championship though there was one Walsh Cup game in 2018 in Freshford, which the Cats won by 3-18 to 0-8.
The only other clash at senior level was that Walsh Shield final earlier this year when Dowling’s side gave notice of the competitiveness that has followed in Division 1B and the Leinster campaign. Kildare were eventually reeled in by the Black and Amber who won by 1-20 to 2-13 but it was a game that convinced the panel they were on the right track.
Kildare senior teams have played Kilkenny on at least eight reported occasions going back as far as 1912 in provincial junior and intermediate championships, though their opponents were not the Cats’ first teams.
The most significant win a Kildare team have had over Kilkenny was in the 1969 Leinster Intermediate semi-final when the Lilywhites won by 5-11 to 5-8 in Dr Cullen Park on the way to the All-Ireland success that propelled them into the senior grade for most of the 1970’s.
Newspaper reports described that win as Pat Dunney’s “finest hour” at the time, while Jack Connell and the Carew brothers were others to earn rave reviews. Mick Dwane and John Cummins did a lot of the damage on the scoreboard with two goals apiece. Kildare went on to beat Cork’s second string in the All-Ireland final.
As for Saturday’s match, Dowling, hit by injury and illness to David Qualter and Cian Boran to add to the long-term losses of Cathal Dowling and James Burke, was delighted to give namesake Cathal more than thirty minutes of action against Galway and hopes to have Burke in the 26 this weekend.
The unfortunate Qualter is out with an ACL injury for the remainder of the year while Boran is recovering from an appendix operation.
With Offaly earning draws against both Dublin and Kilkenny, the narrative around the relegation battle has changed since the competition started and the hope that it might be a straight shootout between Kildare and the Faithful has receded.
Now it’s a much more complicated scenario with the round five shootout scenario only coming to pass if Offaly fail to beat Wexford next weekend. If Offaly win that, Kildare can only stay up if they get something out of the Kilkenny game.
The stakes have been raised.
