Kildare have grown as a team through McDonagh Cup

There was a moment where Kildare’s season teetered on the brink of disaster.

After seeing a 13 point lead whittled away by Westmeath, the scores in Round 2 of the group stages were level with just five minutes remaining. This was just a week after Kildare had conceded the last five points to lose by a point to Kerry.

It was Kildare’s tenth game across three separate McDonagh Cup campaigns and they had lost in all previous nine attempts, including that gut wrenching defeat to Kerry.

It’s surely not too much of a stretch of the imagination to think that Kildare’s season could have taken a very different course had they crumbled in those final few minutes and lost to Westmeath.

But instead, Kildare stood up to be counted and eventually pulled away to win by six points.

In the next round, Kildare showed that was no fluke. Away to Carlow, the home side took advantage after a black card shown to Rian Boran and pulled level with five points in a row. Again, Kildare showed how far they have come as a team when turned momentum back in their favour and secured a superb away win.

“It maybe even created a bit of character from the lads,” agreed Boran, who will captain the team in the final at Croke Park on Sunday.

“I think definitely in that game (Westmeath), and the one after (Carlow), there were some real leaders who stood up and drove it on and knocked over a couple of points. I think’s been very beneficial to finish it out as we did, we definitely learned a lot from that,” he added.

That win against Westmeath kickstarted a brilliant run of four successive wins. There is a school of thought that Kildare are in bonus territory after starting the campaign with survival on their mind but now that they are in the final, Boran is looking for the team to make the most of the opportunity.

“Same as every team, we got together at the start of the year and go through our long term and short term goals. Our long term goal was definitely to try get promoted in the league and either to stay up or do very well in the Joe McDonagh Cup. You have your short term goals as well, try to break them down and just try to improve every week. That’s no different in the build up to this game, we’ll just try to stay focused on the game at hand and be very respectful of the opposition. Laois are a very good team and deserve a lot of respect, coached very well. We’ll just take it day by day, session by session, and enjoy the build up,” said Boran.

Like many of this team-mates, Boran has enjoyed success at Croke Park but this time is different. With all due respect to the previous winning teams, this final will be televised live on RTÉ and before the Leinster Senior Final and Boran said the team will embrace the occasion.

“It will be a great day out for the family and when you are winning matches it’s all the better. I think it’s the same for most lads’ families in the squad there, it’s all about the family and friends who come along to support,” said Boran.

Support on the day will be huge and Boran is looking forward to seeing a big Lilywhite crowd.

“I can’t speak highly enough of what it means for the lads when there is a big support, especially from the younger generation. That’s what we need, young hurlers coming through. There has been huge work done in the last 10,15 years within Kildare GAA and we can see that paying off now with the diverse spread of clubs on the county minor team and the under 20s,” he said.

Kildare beat Laois by 11 points in the group stages but Boran doesn’t think that will have any impact on Sunday’s game.

“I think for both teams it will be very different on Sunday. We learned a lot from Laois but they’ve obviously learned a couple of things from us as well. I do think it will be very different game, I do think it will be very competitive but we’ll just focus on our controlables. We’ll do our homework and try to shut them down as best as possible,” he said.