Former All-Star leads the queries at animated County Board meeting
September's County Board meeting was held at Cedral St. Conleths Park
Former Kildare All-Star Martin Lynch lit the touchpaper for a two-hour Kildare County Board meeting tonight as he passionately criticised the mindset of the Kildare senior football set-up on a night when Chairman Mick Mullen had to withstand a barrage of criticism following his update on this summer’s “comprehensive review” of Brian Flanagan’s second year in charge of the team.
Mullen confirmed that Flanagan, who is in the middle of a four-year term, would have Davy Burke as lead coach, with Armagh’s Aidan O’Rourke and Daryl Flynn no longer involved, while Damien Hendy continues as part of the backroom team.
Further additions are “to be finalised” by Flanagan and brought before the November County Board meeting for ratification.
Mullen acknowledged that “Brian Flanagan recognises that 2026 was not his best year,” and that the area of strength of conditioning was a key factor that came out of the review held by a five-person review committee consisting of Mullen, Treasurer Alan Dunney, Secretary Lorraine O’Connor, Operations Manager Louise Conlon and Vice Chairperson Larry Curtin.
With S&C coach Neil Welch departing, Mullen indicated that a new S&C structure, with “a modern high-performance environment,” would be implemented and that Flanagan was working and would bring it forward “shortly.” Delegates asked for more detail of the issues coming out of the review but were not provided with any further details on the grounds of confidentiality between the executive and manager.
The area of fitness and treatment of players was one area that delegates had an issue with on the night, with the decision to bring Sallins star Colm Dalton on a pre-Christmas training trip to Portugal while in the middle of a Leinster Club championship campaign, strongly criticised by his own club and others.
Dalton suffered a hamstring injury which undoubtedly damaged his club’s All Ireland aspirations as well as his season with the county. Mullen agreed to take this issue up with the manager with clubs looking for assurances that this would not recur.
Similarly, the Raheens delegate took issue with the holding of testing sessions with Kildare players in July, weeks after the inter-county season had ended and which he believed left two club players injured.
But it was the contribution of former Clane forward Lynch that ignited the evening. Lynch recalled the 1997 team he was involved in getting “scutched by the Dubs,” and changing the mindset under Mick O’Dwyer in Hawkfield.
He argued that there were three phases to a team’s mindset: “Hoping, Believing and Knowing.” It was only when they reached the “knowing” stage that he and his colleagues had become successful under O’Dwyer.
Lynch alluded to recent visits to Kerry where the locals raved about Kildare footballers and couldn’t understand why we were not successful and asked the chairman whether it was true that certain Kildare players had booked holidays before they played their championship game against Kerry.
Later, when, responding to a question from the floor around Brian Flanagan’s goals for 2027, Mullen indicated that promotion from Division 3 and reaching a Leinster Final were the targets, Lynch was quick to respond once more.
It has to “we’re going to win the Leinster Final,” he said, “not get to it.” “He (Flanagan) needs to tell those boys they’re going to win a Leinster Final.
The former star forward argued that getting out of Division 3 should be the minimum requirement, but that Kildare needed to be aiming immediately to get to Division 1 as all of the All-Ireland winners of recent times had been dining at the top table, in the top five of that division.
Armagh, he said, didn’t have a DNA of winning All-Irelands but had now won two.
Football Development Officer Bryan Murphy, a former team-mate for club and county of Lynch’s, took up the rallying cry but called on those present and their clubs to be “evangelists” for their clubs and to get behind the county team.
He argued that Westmeath supporters had done so in the Leinster semi-final in Tullamore and the Kildare supporters had not, and that this was a key factor in getting the Lake County over the line.
Regarding other managerial appointments senior hurling manager Brian Dowling was ratified for a further three-year term while Adrian Kinsella has been re-appointed as under-20 manager, while in football Leinster provincial winners Niall Cronin (under-20) and Tommy Konstantin (under-17) will continue in their roles. The under-17 hurling manager appointment has not yet been confirmed.
