In conversation with...Niall Kelly
Niall Kelly has called time on his inter--county career Photo: ©INPHO/Tom Maher
After over 100 appearances for Kildare, Athy’s Niall Kelly announced his retirement from intercounty football just before Christmas. Making his debut as a 19-year-old in the defeat of Dublin in the O’Byrne Cup Final of 2013, Niall played under six different Kildare managers, won a Leinster U21 and Sigerson Cup medal and finished his intercounty career with a Tailteann Cup medal in the summer on ’25.
I sat down with the Kildare and Athy sharpshooter this week as he reflected on that 12-year career. He arrived at the Clanard Court a picture of slimline elegance, me, I arrived carrying a few extra pounds of Christmas generosity.
Niall, what was Christmas like in the Kelly household this year with you not having to prepare for an O’Byrne Cup campaign with Kildare?
It was a funny sort of Christmas, in a way, Pat, in that with the Athy season having run so long, it was such a quick run into it. I suppose going back in with Kildare or not going back in with Kildare was something that wasn't on my mind for a long time as I was thinking of other things with Athy. Over the last couple of weeks, since I made the final decision, it's probably dawned on me how different this Christmas has been compared to others. I’m completely at peace with my decision and I was happy to have a Christmas where I could spend time with family. Eimear and Ruby will be seeing a lot more of me from January onwards, which is good in that sense.
When did you start thinking of retiring then?
Before we kicked off last year, I knew that if I fast forwarded 12 months, I’d be a year older, Ruby, at home, would be a year older and moving around a lot more so it was always something that I had at the back of my mind. It was a decision that I probably had to think about or make at the end of the year. I met with Brian (Flanagan) a couple of days after the County Final and we had a good chat. Of course, he wanted to get a feel for where my head was, which was completely fair at the time. At that stage I said I was probably 70/30 out but it wasn’t a final decision as I was focused on the season ahead with Athy. To be fair to him he gave me the time and space to go and progress in Leinster and said we’d have a chat whenever things finished up.
So, it was only really after the season finished with Athy that I made that final decision, which was strange in a way, because, up until that point, I probably had the comfort of saying I wasn't 100% out; I wasn’t putting full closure on it but saying those final couple words when I made the decision to finish up was tough. It was only then it probably dawned on me that I had retired.
Who did you say those final words to?
I would have had to come to the decision myself first and then I said it to Eimear. I mentioned it to my parents as well and then Brian afterwards. In fairness Eimear, my family at home, my parents and everyone else would have supported me either way and they always would have been the same. There was definitely a piece of them saying, God, would you not give it another go? But it's not just the matches and the great days out but it's everything in the background that puts a toll on the time you can give to family at home and the time you can give to everything else, work included. So, weighing all of those things up you have to find the right thing for everyone, especially when you have Ruby at home, who doesn't understand what football is at this stage. She's nearly a year and a half and it would be great to give her lots of great days out with Kildare but unfortunately that won’t happen.
They say putting the few words into the Players WhatsApp Group is the hardest thing. How did you feel about that?
It wasn't something I had put too much thought into as I wouldn't be the most sentimental, if that’s the right word. I was thinking about doing it after I spoke to Brian and I was like, I should just put a few words together, send it in and be done with it. Then I started writing it and I probably did ten different drafts of what I was going to say. I know other lads have said it before as well, it was a tough message to hit SEND on. It's closure and while you know that your family and Brian, I'm sure the management, would have known early as well but the lads I would have played with, some of them for twelve years or so, to actually say it to them was really tough. In a way, you might feel like you're letting them down a little bit by stepping away but having spoken to a lot of them since then, they understood the reasons why I was doing it. I'm happy with the reasons of why I'm doing it and that to me was probably the main thing.
What do you remember of your senior debut for Kildare against Dublin in an O’Byrne Cup Final in 2013? You had a strong manager in Kieran McGeeney and a lot of experienced players, a lot for a 19-year-old to take in?
It was a bit of a whirlwind, I'd say. It came very, very quickly. I remember a lot of it quite clearly. I remember before that game, I wasn't due to start the game, and somebody got an injured, maybe Cathal McNally, and Kieran just called me last minute and said, you’re going to start here. In a way that was probably a blessing, because it didn't allow me to think too much about it or understand the gravity of making my debut for Kildare. I was always hopeful that it would happen but there are no guarantees. I remember, at the time, I would have be in college in UCD and playing with some of the Dublin lads, Jack McCaffrey, Paul Mannion, who were playing that night as well. In a way, it was comforting that they were in the opposition in that I didn't feel like out of my depth but it was an unbelievable experience. That whole first year was something I look back at very fondly. I will be forever grateful to Kieran for giving me the opportunity to start out and give me that jersey on the night in Parnell Park and go from there. They’re memories I look back on very fondly.
You came in to a team that had being going quite well at a time, then there was a change of manager with McGeeney departing, did you get emotionally involved at that stage?
Yeah, I found it a strange time because up until that point I knew nothing but playing football. I never really got involved in managerial appointments or anything like that so; to be brought into that as part of the overall Players Group at the time, I did find it a bit uncomfortable. I didn't really have an opinion either way but I definitely had a level of loyalty built up to Kieran at the time because of the chance he gave me. I didn't know anything but the great manager that he was and the great coach that he was, which people may not have seen at the time. To be honest I just wanted to look forward to playing football the following year. I didn't really understand the gravity of the whole developing situation in the background, if that makes sense. Looking back, I’m disappointed that it had to come to that. I think he probably would have been the man to steer the ship for the next while afterwards but look, that's the way things develop and that's the way things happen. I suppose a lot of the ownership had to fall onto us as players to continue to drive things forward and I’m probably disappointed at this point, that it maybe didn’t happen for another couple of years, at least, until Cian (O’Neill) came in.
In your time you played under six different managers, did you enjoy a great relationship with them all?
I'd like to think I got on pretty well with all of them at different stages, at least. I got on really well with Jason Ryan over the time he was there and I wouldn't have a bad word of it all, but I felt it was always the shadow of Kieran hanging over that time, in a way. I’m not sure if it was reflection rather than looking forward, maybe, throughout those years. But when Jack O'Connor came in, I thought he was a breath of fresh air. He's obviously been in the media a lot for what he is doing in Kerry and that’s well justified, but he brought in a real kind of open, free-flowing type of football.
The time with Cian O'Neill and 2017 was the year I probably look back on most fondly and getting to my first Leinster Final, having gone through a lot of semi-finals in the years before that. Getting over Meath in the semi-final in 2017 was arguably the match I've looked back on most fondly, I think, over my whole career. It was such a sense of relief to finally get over the line and get to a Leinster Final and, albeit the final didn't go as we wished, we did manage to get over that line. Getting there and giving the people around us the memories of getting to a Leinster Final and walking behind the parade was something I look back on very fondly.
After Cian and then after Jack, Glenn came in and there was a great buzz about the place. How difficult was that time for you as you went through a period of injury around that time as well?
Yeah, that's right. I ruptured my Achilles in 2020 in the County Final and then it was Covid and things kind of slowed down for a while. I came back in 2021 when Jack was still there and appeared in the Leinster Final but then there was no back door so I didn't get any more football. When Glenn came in, actually, I stepped away then for two years. Honestly, even looking in as a supporter at the time, it was tough because, for someone who stood on the pitch with a lot of those lads knowing the work that that was going in, it was really tough. It was not tough in the sense of, like they should be doing more, or anything like that, it was very much like I trusted the work was being done but maybe something was falling through the cracks. I came back in Glenn’s third year and that cemented for me that the work had been done and the lads had been working really, really hard. That in itself was a tough year, results wise. I was probably coming back in with a different sort of a mindset in that I had a personal goal that I wanted to try and get myself back to a level that maybe I was at before, at the level I needed to be at to play those games. On the other side, obviously, then you had the team goal of winning the games, which is what we didn't quite succeed on, unfortunately. That was tough because you feel the energy you get from outside of the group is, I find, sometimes as important and you could feel that energy being drained just because we weren’t winning games. Getting back to winning games this year with Brian was a big boost and it was a welcome change which was great.
Why did you step away for those two years and conversely why did you decide to come back? NK: I was probably drained, maybe, a little bit. It's funny because when I came back after the Achilles injury when Jack was still there, I think that was probably the last year on the old rules, where the game was somewhat free flowing. Before I stepped away, I could see that as a forward especially, space was so, so limited, kick passing was so limited and that free flowing football that I definitely felt was there during Cian’s tenure was starting to fade out pretty quickly and my enjoyment of football was fading with it. It probably came to a head then at the end of 2021/into 2022 and I decided to step away. Deep down I hoped that wouldn't be it. It wasn't the same as the conversation we're having today where this is closure, this is the final decision. At that stage I almost felt like I needed to freshen up a little bit in my head, recharge. I didn't know when or if that would ever materialise in putting a Kildare jersey on again but I knew that if I was to go back in that year that I wouldn't have Kildare jersey on for too long, that it would be a fairly quick end. I just wasn't able to get myself up to enjoy it and I felt that stepping back to the club and starting to play football with the club as regularly as possible would help me and I thought it did. I knew that there was no guarantee in terms of getting a call back into Kildare but I hoped that someday it would. I remember getting a call from Johnny Doyle one October afternoon in the Whitewater in Newbridge to ask me to come back in. That would have been at the end of the 2023 season and it was nice to get the call and I'm delighted that I did and delighted with the last few years.
How nice was it coming back in because your brother, Barry, was with you as well?
It was great, actually, yeah. He had a great season with Athy and he was over the moon naturally to get the call. It was great to have that experience of playing with Kildare with him as David Hyland had with Mark as well in the years before that. So, it meant the absolute world and meant the world to our family, I'm sure. Memories that I will look back on fondly.
Was it nice for you to finish with a national medal in your back pocket?
It was absolutely great to finish on a high with a medal in Croke Park, something that I've been chasing from I started out. It's kind of funny that it's hard to believe that the last game is the one that you actually come away with some sort of silverware. It was great to finally see that buzz. I suppose there have been games over the years we've won and there's been a great excitement around, none of them, unfortunately, landed silverware. So, it was a relief, in one way, but a great sense of achievement to be part of a group that could get over the line in Croke Park.
Kildare suffered a lot of heavy defeats during your playing days, as a young player how did you cope with that?
There was a lot of reflection whether it be a big defeat or a narrow defeat. We probably had some narrow defeats that we felt we should have come through or we felt, maybe on paper, we were the better team. But that means absolutely nothing on the day. If I think back to Tullamore against Carlow that was probably the lowest of lows, I think. I know you could say that going down the Divisions was low but you always think about one specific game or some specific games, and yeah, that was really tough. As I said, on paper, we may have thought we were a better team but it meant absolutely nothing and that was a perfect example of where maybe, I'm not sure, when being a bit complacent taking a team for granted really, really cost us. But I suppose then on the flip side, the bounce back from that was really some of the best memories I have in a Kildare jersey Obviously, the Newbridge or Nowhere game and everything that came with it were memories that will last for a lifetime. So, yeah, there were lots of highs and lows but I'd like to prefer to dwell on the highs as much as I can.
You seemed to have enjoyed yourself with the New Rules this year?
Yeah, I think they're breath of fresh air, to be honest. I think they're bringing out the best of backs as well as the best of forwards. I wouldn't say for a second that they're giving forwards an easy ride because with that extra space you do have to work harder to make use of the space. I don't think I've ever looked at as many games in my life as I have over the past probably six months and probably listened to you more, Pat, than I've ever listened to anyone. They’ve brought a new life back to football, I think, not just in terms of high scoring games but you're seeing new tactics, you’re seeing long kickouts come back in fashion again, and with that, short kickouts becoming tougher. Rewind five years and short kick outs were merely a kick out into the corner and then it's just a restart again. Coming into this year I can't wait to see the tactics that inter county teams develop again and I think it's going to come to a whole new level to see how they might twist the rules.
Have the New Rules changed you as a player?
Definitely it has, I think. If I look back to the time in the old rules, I would have found that even as a forward, you're a de facto back; you're always up and down the pitch. When you're not in attack, you're part of a 15 man defence so I think that's changed for the better, in that while you are defending, sometimes you're able to focus more of your attention on the attack inside and you're then fresher when an attack develops and you're able to put more energy into that attack and think about the moves you make and the runs you're making a bit more than before.
For the future then, Niall, apart from continuing to play with Athy would you consider coaching or management?
I wouldn’t rule any of that out but obviously in the immediate future it will be very much concentrating on continuing to play with Athy and focusing on family life and work. At some stage the boots will be firmly hung up but I love football. I love going to matches and playing matches and I love the tactics side of things and getting around teams. At some stage I’d love to explore it but I’m not sure in what capacity and I don’t even know if I’d be good at it but it’s something I’d definitely be interested in but I hope I have a good few years playing in front of me first.
Finally, Niall, what can Eimear and Ruby expect from you from ’26 onwards?
They can probably expect to see a little bit more of me at home anyway, not sure if they’ll be happy with that or not! Eimear plays a bit of football herself with the club so we’ll both have our hands full over the next year. I’m looking forward to just spending a bit more time at home and not being on the road as much over to Hawkfield, which is welcome in one way, but I’ll definitely look back on it with a bit of envy when they’re playing matches, not in January, but I’d say February.
