Kildare's stretched squad is on a steep learning curve

In the grand scheme of things, the O’Byrne Cup Final is a complete irrelevance but the way Friday evening’s game played out should mean that it matters a lot for Kildare.

Elite level players should be annoyed when they lose a training game, annoyed when they kick a wide in a training game, annoyed when a man gets a score off them in training game.

So that group should be fuming to let an eight point lead slip in the final 17 minutes against Westmeath in front of couple of thousand spectators and in a game televised to the nation. It’s the first defeat in Newbridge under Brian Flanagan and in front of the newly developed stand in a (semi) competitive game.

These things matter whether it is ‘only’ the O’Byrne Cup or not.

In fairness to the management and the players, the faces on Flanagan and his squad after the game suggested that nobody was taking that final quarter capitulation lightly.

There are of course hugely mitigating circumstances. To say that the Kildare squad is stretched right now is putting it mildly. If the same 15 that started on Friday take to the field for next Saturday’s opening round of the National League against Tyrone, and the signs are that there are unlikely to be too many changes, then half of the 14 outfielders would be getting their first taste of League football.

Retirements, injuries and absentees for a variety of reasons mean the lines between the Kildare senior squad and the development squad are blurred at the moment. Flanagan said after the game that he won’t be able to name a squad for the League before that game against Tyrone as the number of players missing through injury hovers around the double digit mark.

There is nobody pretending that Kildare’s preparation for the season has been anywhere near ideal.

Individually, all those young and inexperienced players around the squad have the CVs to suggest they are capable of having a long and prosperous inter-county career in a Kildare jersey. Many are U20 All-Ireland winners, some have Kildare Senior Championship medals. These are serious prospects and in the long run they will all benefit from the learning period they are going through but from a team point of view, it is difficult when so many are going through that process at the same time.

And yet, this is the situation that we find ourselves in.

It’s a tough schedule at the moment and there were a number of players defending that lead in the final few minutes who had played a tough Championship game in the Sigerson Cup just a few days earlier but it was still alarming the amount of space allowed to Luke Loughlin and Ronan Wallace to inspire a comeback.

Those two are superb players but with the absolute height of respect to them, they will be playing in Division 3 and possibly the Tailteann Cup this season, going into Division 2 and the Sam Maguire Cup Kildare going to come up against even better and they will need to manage situations an awful lot better than they did in the final stages of Friday's game.

Kildare’s season doesn’t hinge on what happens in Omagh next Saturday but at the same time, we have seen in the past how difficult it can be to reverse momentum when on a losing run. Whatever happens against Tyrone, the second round game against Offaly the following week will be a huge game in Kildare’s Division 2 season. The home games, three against Leinster opposition, are the ones that will dictate the success, or otherwise, of Kildare’s National League. Hopefully by the time of the third round game at home to Derry on Valentine’s Day Kildare’s injury situation will have improved significantly.

It's a steep learning curve at the moment and there may be more short term pain going up against a Tyrone side who were relegated from Division 1 despite finishing only a point behind eventual winners Kerry and who then went on to reach an All-Ireland semi-final before we see the medium to long term gain.

But if Kildare can find a way to rectify the mistakes that caused Friday’s game to slip away from them as they head into the League then the O’Byrne Cup won’t have been meaningless at all.