New era to dawn under lights for Kildare on Saturday

There will be a lot for Kildare supporters to take in on Saturday evening as the senior footballers take on Galway in a challenge game in Cedral St Conelths Park (7.30pm) in the first game of 2025.

It’s a brand era as Brian Flanagan takes charge of the team for the first time in public and as you would expect with a manager who has enjoyed so much of success at underage level, there will be a youthful and fresh look to the Kildare squad.

New chairman Mick Mullen will presumably be in attendance in the newly developed stand in a ground which will be hosting an intercounty game under lights for the first time.

And yet, all that change pales into insignificance when it comes to supporters trying to understand the game that they are watching.

49 motions were passed in a succession of landslide votes at a Special Congress in Croke Park last November which means that the game that supporters watch on Saturday will be almost unrecognisable from the last match most watched.

Flanagan has had a lot on his plate since his appointment and says that the new rules have a played a big part in his thinking about the make up of his squad, but he says he is broadly in favour of the changes.

“There’s a lot of change but I would say that the game probably needed it,” said the new Kildare manager.

“From a coaching and players’ point of view, you have to embrace them now and try get your head around them as quick as you can first of all. Any pitch work we have done in the last few weeks has been very much with the new rules in mind – trying to figure them out, understand them and give the players the accountability on the field,” said Flanagan.

When it comes to the new rules themselves, in the training games and behind door games that Kildare have played, Flanagan has found difficulty in two of them.

“The big thing we have probably seen, there’s probably two. One is the three up top, it’s very hard to manage that from the sideline and to get messages out. On the field, that needs to be managed.

“The other thing then is the dissent. The punishment for that now is huge, it’s 50 metres straight away so things are going to have to be incredibly disciplined in that regard. Dissent, we all probably think of lambasting a referee, but that is now a shrug of the shoulders, it can be not returning the ball to the kicker. Dissent is very, very small stuff now and it’s a complete culture change in the GAA.

“Players will have to realise that quickly because if they don’t they will be costing their teams because almost time the ball is brought forward 50 metres from outside the 45 it is a scorable opportunity. With the two point arc, the team will have the chance to bring the ball back outside that two point arc, so the punishment is huge for what could be a very small indiscretion,” said Flanagan.

Rather than seeing any leeway with these rules, Flanagan is expecting them to strictly enforced, especially early on.

“My sense is, certainly to begin with at intercounty level, they are going to be ruthless. We just have to take a complete black and white approach ourselves and it has even impacted the way we are refereeing games in training. Any indiscretion at all is punished straight off. It’s a complete reset but it’s a mindset thing, lads just have to shut up and get on with it as soon as that whistle is blown,” said Flanagan.

The role of the goalkeeper is set to change hugely as well. Although goalkeepers will be restricted in receiving passes inside their own half, the rule that means teams have to leave three forward inside the attacking 45 at all times gives an opportunity to create an overlap with an extra man by bringing the ‘keeper out to make it 12 v 11 in every attack. It means a lot more running involved and the man who was previously was the one between the posts will have much more of a roving role.

“We’ve had GPS on our goalkeepers in training in the last few weeks and they have a level of fitness and athleticism required to play that role. It is an advantage, any attacking team that is in the opposition half is going to be looking to bring their goalkeeper up more often than not. You may not do it every time, and how aggressive you are towards that will depend on the type of goalkeeper you have but it is something that every team in the country is going to be looking at,” said Flanagan.

It will be difficult for defenders too as a lot of the new rules are on the side of the attacking player.

“If you look at all the new rules, the seven or eight key new rules, they are all in the attacking team’s favour. It’s the team possession who are going to be benefit from them. They are all offensively minded. None of these rules benefit a defender. If you think of the attacking mark, if the ball is played in and the forwards wins it he has the mark, if I do brilliantly to hold him up or get block then it’s still going to be brought back for the mark. My reward as a defender isn’t great.

“You have three defenders back there and they are three defenders that need to be comfortable in one on one defending. They are not going to beat their man to the ball everytime but when they don’t they have to be comfortable enough to stay on their free, stay goalside and just hold him up. You don’t have the luxury of sitting three or four lads sitting back anymore. You’re not going to have 15 fellas back every time but I think that’s better for the game to be honest. It’s definitely sped the game up, it has set it up for more fast attacks and more one on one situations so from my point of view it is a positive. But I would say that is probably has tailored our view as to the individuals playing these roles,” said Flanagan, before adding:

“We have just tried to embrace what is coming and go for it. As I said, they are set up for attacking teams and therefore when you are in possession you hold all the aces.” 

The priority for Flanagan, apart from getting to grips with those rule changes, has been assembling his squad and he is very close to finalising it. It will be a youthful squad with a number of players who played on underage teams for Flangan getting their first call ups but the manager insisted that a balance is needed and there is still a very important part to play for the experienced players in the squad, including former captain David Hyland who is back after missing the 2024 season due to travelling.

“David Hyland is back in with us since just before Christmas after six or eight months in Australia. Brian McLoughlin has rejoined the squad, Mark Dempsey as well. Mark has been down studying medicine in Limerick and moved back up home just before Christmas and he’s fully on board. We’re still working on one or two others, we spoken to anybody who is out of the country just to get an idea of where they are at and their likely timeline. Neil Flynn, Jack Robinson, Darragh Malone, all those lads and whenever they are back they understand that there’s an open door here and we’d be very welcoming of them whenever they do arrive home.

“You want to get the balance right. I would like to think we still have a lot of experience at the other end of the squad. So while you could say that 50% of the squad is probably new. We have Eoin Lawler and Ryan Sinkey in with us and they’ll be with the under 20s as well and then we have a lot of players who have come through the under 20s who are in the squad for the first time – Jack McKevitt, Tommy Gill, James McGrath, Harry O’Neill, Shane Farrell, Callum Bolton, Luke Killian, Cormac Barker. All these type of lads who have been on under 20 squads and who are still young. At the other end, you have Mick O’Grady, Kevin Feely, Daniel Flynn, Niall Kelly, Brian Byrne, even Kevin Flynn, Aaston Masterson, there’s huge experience in those fellas. It’s about getting that balance right, we are young and the overall demographic of the squad will be young but it’s athletic and should hopefully progress over time. I’d like to think that the older heads will bring that maturity and know how when other lads are still finding their way,” said Flanagan.

After his appointment, Flanagan and his management team trawled the Kildare Championships with a particular emphasis put on unearthing talent in the Intermediate and Junior Championships.

“I watched a lot of games this year and I thought the quality of the Intermediate and Junior Championships was very good. We’ve seen that in the Leinster Championships, Ellistown did very well and then Caragh won the Intermediate on the back of Allenwood winning it last year. There is huge value from an intercounty point of view of knowing what is going on in those championships, apart from just Senior. I think there’s an awareness anyway of Senior, the top clubs, who is playing, who is starting, we all know them and are familiar with them. They are in the shop window all the time by playing in Division 1 and playing Senior but we’ve had a look at the lower divisions. We had three lads from Ellistown in and they have moved on to the development squads since. We’ve unearthed a couple of fellas from the lower tiers that we expect can make the step up, we are going to give them their opportunity anyway.

“It’s been a very enjoyable process so far. First of all, the energy from players to come in and put themselves forward and commit to this has been massive. We’ve had a look at a lot of players. We would have tested players, brought them in, seen where they were at athletically, physically, then tactically a little bit in the last few weeks on the pitch. We had big enough numbers to begin with, probably in around the 55-60 mark, maybe a bit more. A lot of that was picked from the club championships, all three championships, I suppose the underage from the last couple of years and then a couple of other lads coming back into the fold that hadn’t been involved. We’re at the point now where we are very close to our final panel,” said Flanagan.

Brendan Gibbons is expected to be sidelined for the first two months of the year with osteitis pubis and a hamstring tear will keep Rian Teahan out until the end of January but other than that Flanagan is expected to head into the new year with pretty much a clean bill of health.

“Jack McKevitt has been back on the field in the last couple of weeks, Dean O’Donoghue, Tommy Gill, a lot of the younger lads. We expect to have Kevin Flynn, Aaron Masterson, Shane Farrell and one or two others back this week,” said Flanagan.

Many of those that haven’t quite made the cut for the senior panel will continue to work with a Development Squad that will be managed and coached by Eddie Holton, Paul Flood, Padraic Carty and Mikey Conway.

“It says an awful lot about Kildare football that we have buy in and lads willing to come in and give it their all because they want to be on the senior panel. There’s 25-30 players there and I’d say 90% of them were part of what we have been doing in the last two months. I’ve spoken to them all about the importance of this, physically, tactically and just to get some experience of football at intercounty level for the next three months.

“You go back to our time under Kieran (McGeeney). I would have come through a Junior team, Emmet Bolton came through a Junior team, Peter Kelly was probably the standout who did when he came into the senior squad and then won an All-Star the following year. There was massive benefit to it. You’ve seen in Kildare over the last few years, there is a changing of five, six, seven, eight players every year. I think those new players coming in have to be up to speed very quickly because through injuries and just the amount of games that you have to play in a six or seven month window you need squad depth. to have proper squad depth that can hold their own at intercounty level they have to ready to take that opportunity when it comes. To be honest, most of that is on the physical side of things. It is an athletic conditioning piece that is above and beyond underage, schools, college or club football. The step up to intercounty is what you are trying to bridge. Also, the age demographic of that squad are all probably just out of under 20 and below 24. I would like to think that as we pick up injuries or that we have fellas who lose form as the year progresses than we can dipping into the development squad and we’d be bringing whoever is standing out there up, and there will be that bit of interchange as the year goes on,” said Flanagan.

The manager would have preferred for the O’Byrne Cup to have been kept on this year and says the change in structures places even more importance on challenge games such as Saturday’s against Galway.

“I would have preferred the O’Byrne Cup this year because of the new rules and us as a new management coming in. We could possibly have carried a bigger squad in the first few weeks of the new year on the basis of playing those O’Byrne Cup games. I thought the right decision for this year, on the basis of the new rules, would be to have a competitive competition ahead of the league so we can all get our heads around it and see what is working and what isn’t. That wasn’t to be so we set about getting decent challenge games. We’re playing Galway this weekend and Down the following week and that will leave us set up for the league. The thing with the challenge games this year is that they are probably taking on a much higher level of importance than they would have in previous years because you don’t have that pre-season competition and the new rules. Most teams come the new year, with Sigerson and everything else, are only really going to play two-three challenge games and that’s it, so each game you have is going to be of very high importance,” said Flanagan, but overall it is the opening league game against Fermanagh that is the focus.

“Fermanagh has been a really tough fixture for Kildare over the last number of years, Fermanagh are a tough fixture for everybody, but in the context of Division 3 next year our first two games against Fermanagh and Sligo are massive. I know it’s a cliché but we are honestly not looking past Fermanagh right now. Everything we are doing in training is geared towards Fermanagh and we want to start the League with a home win, simple as that, but that won’t be easy and we still have a lot of work to do between now and then. It's a big challenge and one that we are looking forward on our first outing.

“I would be very happy, with the backroom and the way that they are gelling, working with them is just a dream at the minute. The players and the buy in from them has been top class but I’d be very conscious that while everything is positive at the moment, ultimately we will be defined by our results and that will dictate whether the crowds come back or not. We need to deliver on the field from the end of January onwards and we are under no illusions that that is the case but in terms of stepping out in front of the public that starts on Saturday against Galway. We haven’t taken an easy challenge for that game, Galway have been in two of the last three All-Ireland finals and unlucky to not to have won at least one of them. It’s a huge a challenge, they are very well conditioned, big men, they have been in Division 1 and operating at the business end of Championships. It’s an exciting one, a big ask for our lads to compete at that level but for a challenge you want something that is a little bit daunting and we will have to be on our game to compete and we’ll certainly know where we are after that.

“I hope we get a big turnout for it. A lot of people probably still haven’t seen Cedral St Conleths Park under lights, this will be the first ever intercounty game there under lights so there’s excitement for that. It is a fundraiser for the senior football team so obviously we are trying to encourage people to come out and support us. Bring your kids, under 16s get in free and at half time the GDAs will be a competition out on the pitch so if the kids bring their own football they can get out on the pitch and have a go. The winner of the competition will get to pick a player from the senior team who will go out and do a training session with their team in their club. Afterwards, both teams won’t be rushing off, they’ll be hanging around for pictures, to meet the kids. We want to make it a family day, a good fundraiser, but most importantly a really enjoyable evening and a launchpad for us as a management and group of players to kick into 2025,” said Flanagan.