Unpredictable Laois will provide a tough challenge

We won’t go as far as to suggest we had an Offaly preview written but it was certainly formulating in our head even if it hadn’t made it as far as the laptop.

With the Faithful side having dogged Kildare throughout the last year or so, most of us must have been expecting a fifth engagement with Mickey Harte and Declan Kelly’s team in little over twelve months.

Let it be a warning to us, however – a downward spiral in the league is very hard to arrest when it comes to championship and by all accounts Laois, who led from the first whistle to last in Tullamore, were full value for their nine-point win.

Laois, since their glory day (or days if we’re more charitable) came and went in 2003, have been the ultimate sporting conundrum. They never seem to string more than one or two good performances together and in general their curve has been downward over those couple of decades.

Take this year’s league. They were the very definition of symmetric inconsistency in Division 3. Three wins, three defeats, one draw. Their results sequence looks more like a random walk than a pattern: DLWLWLW.

Make sense if you will of a team that failed to beat either of the relegated teams, Limerick (draw) or Fermanagh (loss) but beat had nine points to spare over third-placed Westmeath and went to Down and won on the final day by four points.

That last result comes with an asterisk as Down were already promoted but you’ll see the pattern. There is none.

Kildare generally have held the upper hand in this local rivalry since that 2003 provincial final defeat, though it is far from emphatic. The sides have met seventeen times in League or Championship since then with Kildare winning ten times, Laois three and the other four games drawn.

Their most recent championship meeting, of course, was that Tailteann Cup quarter-final in Tullamore two years ago where the O’Moore County won by 2-11 to 0-12 to bring the curtain down on a miserable final year of the Glenn Ryan era.

Brian Flanagan’s side gained a measure of revenge in Division 3 last year with an emphatic 0-21 to 0-9 walk in the park in Newbridge.

At minor level the Lilywhites have won the last eight championship clashes of the counties as well as five out of the last seven at under 20/21.

Remarkably, and I really had to double-check this one, this is the first time Kildare have hosted Laois in championship football for 42 years. That was a quarter-final too in 1984, and it was a game that Nationalist journalist Paul Donaghy doesn’t appear to have enjoyed too much.

To quote:

“The poorest championship offering of the current season was the reward for the faithful 6,000 who paid good money to see Laois and Kildare struggle with the rudiments of Gaelic football in what was disguised as a S.F.C. game in Newbridge on Sunday.” Laois eventually won that slow bicycle race by 1-10 to 0-7, despite Kildare having some decent names on their teamsheet, the likes of Larry Tompkins, Shay Fahy, Paddy O’Donoghue and John Crofton among others. Colm Moran Senior, father of the current Kildare youngster, lined out at corner-forward.

Prior to that scorefest, Kildare had only hosted their neighbours in Newbridge on one occasion, in 1919 in the Dominican College grounds, with four further clashes between the sides taking place in Geraldine Park in 1921, 1924,1928 and 1943. Kildare won the first four games, going on to lift the All-Ireland title in 1919 and 1928, but Laois turned the tables on them in 1943. So, you must go back to 1928 for the last Kildare win in a home championship clash with the Laois men.

What of the current Kildare? Well, if Laois have been inconsistent, the Lilywhites sadly have been anything but in Flanagan’s second year in charge, with five league defeats in a row condemning them to a quick return to Division 3.

One suspects the physios and medical staff may have as much of a role to play as the coaches in any attempts to resuscitate our season with a championship run of any length. A reminder that Kevin Feely and Ryan Sinkey were among those to sit out the Louth match that sealed our relegation fate while Ben McCormack, Colm Dalton, Tommy Gill and Harry O’Neill departed with strains of one sort or another.

There have been rumours too of other injuries in the intervening four weeks, but nothing confirmed on that front.

Kildare finished the league with some obvious problems, aside from the injury list, though fixing them in four weeks will have been a challenge.

Primary possession is key in the modern game, and it is an area we have repeatedly struggled with. That’s either all down to the kickouts themselves or to the midfield pairing, though the fact that various alternative solutions from outside the panel have been tried in recent challenge games suggests that it is a problem the management both recognise and are taking seriously.

The goalkeeping jersey seems likely to remain with Cian Burke who has performed perfectly well in the “traditional” fundamentals of the role, whatever one feels about his kickouts. The Clane man is particularly strong and confident under a high ball.

Only if they can be trusted by the management to dramatically improve the possession stats would either Aaron O’Neill or Eoin Sheehan dislodge Burke.

An even bigger issue is possibly the defensive situation. By circumstance and at times by choice, Flanagan and his backroom have been left short of inter-county experience and expertise in that area and have been unable so far, despite a veritable brains trust on the sideline, to find a tactical solution to shore things up.

Options for personnel changes in that division focus on Mark Dempsey, who did his claims no harm as a sub against Louth, and James McGrath, whose lack of game-time this year has been something of a curiosity. But those additions would only work out if the fundamentals of defending have been worked on seriously since Louth.

With the injury situation, the attack is both an opportunity (if the majority are available) and a threat (if for example an Alex Beirne or a Jack Robinson were ruled out). Novenas will be said. An improvement in shooting form from Darragh Kirwan would not go amiss either.

Laois have talent in their ranks, Evan O’Carroll being an obvious standout, but with their inconsistency a factor and perhaps a little blind faith in the work Kildare may have done in the month since Louth, we’ll go for a Kildare victory with a handful of points to spare on Sunday.

LEINSTER SENIOR FOOTBAL CHAMPIONSHIP QUARTÉR-FINALS Kildare V Laois, Cedral St Conleths Park, 3.45pm Meath V Westmeath, Glenisk O’Connor Park, 2pm Louth V Wexford, Netwatch Cullen Park, 2.30pm Wicklow V Dublin, Echelon Park, Aughrim, 3pm