Flying Flynn top scores as Kildare book Tailteann Cup quarter-final place

TAILTEANN CUP - ROUND 3

KILDARE 4-19 SLIGO 1-24 

Kildare secured their place, and a home draw, in the Quarter Finals of the Tailteann Cup, after a breathless, chaotic final group game against Sligo in King & Moffatt Dr Hyde Park, Roscommon on Sunday afternoon.

It was a bitter-sweet success though for Brian Flanagan with the Kildare set-up hit by injuries to Ben McCormack, the luckless Jimmy Hyland and Callum Bolton. It remains to be seen how those impact their participation in the remainder of the competition, though Hyland’s in particular seemed serious.

A frenetic wind-impacted game that perfectly encapsulated the madness and excitement of the new rules, seemed to be as good as over when the Lilywhites led by fifteen points (4-14 to 1-8) after 45 minutes.

But roll forward twenty minutes and with five minutes remaining the Yeats County had kicked four two-pointers and Niall Murphy was giving Kildare full-back Mark Dempsey something of a roasting on the way to a ten-point haul.

Sligo had outscored Kildare by 0-16 to 0-3 in those twenty minutes as they owned Cian Burke’s kickout and a comeback that would have been unthinkable under old rules was very much on the cards.

But the new rules intervened on the behalf of Brian Flanagan’s side as a three-up transgression by Sligo gave Alex Beirne the chance to tap over a close-range free to stretch the Lilywhite lead to three points.

Hearts were still within mouths among a small crowd as Pat Spillane, with two orange flags to his name already, hit a wild and wide one from outside the arc with the game ticking into four minutes of injury time.

The drama wasn’t over though as Sligo were denied a goal chance by a superb intervention from Dempsey and then shot wide having recovered possession.

Kildare held onto the ball well during injury time, with Sligo goalkeeper Aidan Devaney leaving his goal untended, knowing his team needed to wrestle the ball away from their opponents. Eventually the outstanding Beirne set up Naas clubmate Ryan Sinkey for the game’s final score as the Lilywhites emerged four point winners.

Kildare captain Kevin Feely had elected to play with the strong wind blowing directly towards the cemetery goal, but they were hit with a sucker blow early on. After Sinkey had opened the scoring with a point, Sligo, not for the last time, penetrated far too easily and Cian Lally finished to Burke’s net after taking a return pass from Brian Cox.

With the game end-to-end in nature, Kildare played some scintillating football in attack, with Daniel Flynn, in his 100th appearance, Beirne and Colm Dalton at the centre of most of their best moments.

Immediately after Lally’s goal, Flynn struck for Kildare’s first green flag. Beirne’s handpass set him up and although the Johnstownbridge man’s initial attempt was smothered by Devaney, he finished soccer style at the second bite of the cherry.

By the seventh minute Kildare had their second goal, this one coming from a less predictable source. Darting wing-back James McGrath and Dalton combined down the left wing with McGrath coolly slotting to the net from the return pass.

Sligo continued to serve notice that they weren’t for rolling over though and it was 2-3 to 1-3 after fifteen minutes.

Their defence was proving porous, however, and with the impressive Dalton again the provider, Beirne turned neatly inside a defender and improvised with a left-foot finish to the top right hand corner. Three goals after sixteen minutes for notoriously goal-shy Kildare.

Dalton would prove the saviour at the other end shortly afterwards when Lally seemed certain to net his and Sligo’s second goal, the Sallins man brilliantly dispossessing him at the last moment.

Kildare haven’t been prolific from two-pointers but with the elements in their favour, Beirne took advantage of three-v-three transgression to try his luck, successfully, from outside the arc and Dalton added one from play as they went into the break ahead by 3-11 to 1-7.

A strong start to the second half seemed to put concerns of a wind-assisted Sligo comeback to bed, Bolton scoring immediately on his brief introduction and Flynn adding a point, while the Yeats County hit three wides in succession.

And when Beirne and Dalton combined to set up Flynn on the left of the goal area, the full-forward’s deft left-footed finish to the net across Devaney for his second goal, and his fourth in two games, after 43 minutes, seemed to signal the end of the game as a contest.

But with Kildare having taken off Brendan Gibbons at half-time and his replacement Bolton departing after only fourteen minutes of action, a side that had lost McCormack after only two minutes when he failed to run off a strain picked up in the warm-up, and then his replacement Hyland to a lower leg strain before half-time, lost momentum.

Sligo began to clean up on the Kildare kickout and with Murphy a willing and skillful target at full-forward they came storming back, with Spillane’s introduction another positive.

A famous win, and infamous reversal for Kildare, seemed on the cards as the game reached its finale, but Flanagan’s side battled with spirit and kept their heads sufficiently cool to see out a four-point victory.

KILDARE: Cian Burke; Harry O’Neill, Mark Dempsey, Brian Byrne; Tommy Gill 0-2, David Hyland, James McGrath 1-0; Kevin Feely, Brendan Gibbons; Ben McCormack, Alex Beirne 1-6 (1tpf,1 45, 1f), Colm Dalton 0-3 (2p); Ryan Sinkey 0-2, Daniel Flynn 2-3, Brian McLoughlin 0-1. Subs: Jimmy Hyland for McCormack 2, Niall Kelly 0-1 for J Hyland 2, Callum Bolton 0-1 for Gibbons HT, Kevin Flynn for Bolton 49, Jack McKevitt for Gill 66.

SLIGO: Aidan Devaney; Evan Lyons, Eddie McGuinness, Paul McNamara; Brian Cox, Darragh Cummins, Jack Lavin; Canice Mulligan 0-2 (tp), Patrick O’Connor 0-3; Alan Reilly, David Quinn 0-2, Cian Lally 1-0; Alan McLoughlin 0-2 (2fs), Niall Murphy 0-10 (1tpf,3fs), Shane Deignan. Subs: Luke Towey for McNamara HT, Ross Doherty for Lavin 42, Donal Conlan for Deignan 48, Pat Spillane 0-5 (2 tp), Lee Deignan for Cummins 66.

REF: Paddy Neilan (Roscommon).