OPINION: So far, so good for Kildare

In these pages a few weeks ago I called for patience as the Brian Flanagan era got underway. It was as much a mantra for me as for you.

On Sunday in Sligo there was plenty of it needed. This was real National League football. Old style. The swash from the opening round destruction of Fermanagh had buckled on the way up the N4 and the Countess’s field, still reeling perhaps from Storm Éowyn nine days before, was more swamp than sward.

Helped (?) by the new rules the game became an old school slog, particularly around the middle. The goalkeepers relentlessly followed Jim Gavin’s decree that balls should be driven straight and long.

I counted 34 restarts, give or take. The vast majority rained down on a cluttered central domain where eight or ten black and white shirts hoped the inevitable ricochet would send it in their direction. Few were caught cleanly though when they did it was clear to see where Gavin was coming from. It remains one of the great sights of gaelic football.

So, if it wasn’t a day for aesthetics it was one for battling and if you think back to Flanagan’s under-20 teams, they showed plenty of those qualities. They might be memories that we’ve surpressed after the audacious late dramas against Dublin and Down that followed, but my mind was drawn back on Sunday to miserable nights in Wexford Park and Darver.

Having lost their opening group game to Westmeath in Hawkfield, Kildare needed two wins on the road to save that, ultimately glorious, campaign. Conditions were awful on both nights, particularly the latter I recall.

Wind and driving rain saw one of the Louth journalists cover the game from his car while your correspondent, who was on KFM as well as newspaper duty found shelter in the only corner of the clubhouse with a sliver of a view of the pitch. It was purely for the better sound quality, you’ll understand.

That game was in the melting pot to the very last and they conceded a goal at a crucial time but Flano’s charges battened down the hatches and young Eoin Cully came off the bench for a couple of crucial scores that helped them see it out by three points.

Interviewing him afterwards, Flanagan lauded their character.

“Lads could have gone into their shells after that (goal) but in fairness I thought leadership on a night like tonight was going to be really important. Shane Farrell, Callum Bolton, Harry O’Neill, James McGrath, I can’t give these lads enough credit. This team, this championship means an awful lot to them and when we needed them most they stepped up.” It is no coincidence at all that the four players name-checked that night two years ago are now making their way on Flanagan’s senior panel, though Farrell is recovering from injury and O’Neill had to sit Sunday out with the dreaded ‘hammer’, though should be back for Leitrim.

Kildare teams have lost plenty of games like Sundays down the years.

Sligo seemed to be lacking a bit of confidence from the start after their defeat in Offaly, but they have some quality forwards and some dogged defenders and when they got it back to a point and Kildare players struggled at times to perform the basics, you had to remind yourself of the ‘patience’ mantra.

Character and bench impact can take you so far and they were critical in Kildare getting over the line. It helps too when you have a forward at the height of his game like Darragh Kirwan. There was a certain beauty to that goal nestling in the top corner of the net, a finality to it. Job done.

Two games in and two opponents Flanagan had specifically targeted successfully negotiated. Fermanagh and Sligo had eyes on promotion just as we do. We still have a lot of work to do and there may be little room for flowing football in Ennis or Tullamore in particular. Flanagan will relish those tussles.