Flanagan keen to get game time into Kildare squad players

Brian Flanagan’s management of his panel’s playing time over the past couple of weeks has been novel and impressive, not just his seven changes for the trip to Tipp but his attitude to letting players getting minutes with their clubs. His thinking on it is logical and mature.

“There’s nothing worse than being on a county team and not playing whether that’s playing club or county so that was very healthy for us, and it has helped us a lot because we’ve been getting around to as many of the games as we could to get eyes on lads and I think lads appreciate that as well. You go back to the club and it’s just a different team, different position, different environment and it can be refreshing for them. So, I think they’ll bring the energy of that back in here.”

As regards last Saturday's game against Tipperary, where they struggled to maintain early momentum and seemed in for a real battle when Tipp narrowed the gap back to two early in the second half, Flanagan was pleased with his troops.

“The scoreline probably doesn’t reflect how competitive Tipp were at times. For forty-five minutes that was a proper, competitive, game. In fairness to our lads, I have to give them an awful lot of credit. I thought they stuck to it, and we got a big impact off the bench coming in and when we found our rhythm at that three-quarter stage I thought we kicked for home and finished very strong and well.” 

Flanagan was pleased with the platform a new-look midfield of Aaron Masterson and Brendan Gibbons, their aerial prowess helping to give Kildare momentum in the opening half in particular.

“I thought they did very well, commanded that area very well. We knew Brendan would probably get to the 40-45 minute mark and we had Kev (Feely) to come in and finish it out. No better man to do that. Both lads did really well, caught the ball as you’d expect around the middle when kickouts were going long, contributed from play, Brendan gets a great score in the first half. So, really good days work from the two lads.” 

Flanagan, who expects to have Callum Bolton and Colm Dalton back from injury and “in the mix” for the Sligo game, also reported that the injury that forced Mick O’Grady off at half-time was only an impact injury on the ankle and that “he wanted to stay on but obviously Kevin Flynn did very well last week and we wanted to get him on the field.” Sligo up next with both teams unbeaten and assured of a knock out place but playing for the right to go straight into the Quarter Final. Flanagan is out to win that one, no question.

“We want to keep winning. We want to take control of our own destiny and get that Quarter Final with a break before it. Sligo are a proper team, we know how hard it was when we went down there at the start of the league. That’s going to be really, really competitive, we’ll have to be at our best and it just sets up this two week period for us to be honest. You can really drive into it from Monday on.”

 The win, he says “sets us up for the next two-week period with a weekend off next week to really go at and have that savage internal competition for places.” 

.There’s no question Flanagan is building depth in his panel and rather him than me sitting down to pick his team for that Sligo game.