Patience required ahead of rebuilding job
Kildare manager Brian Flanagan Photo: Sean Brilly
Feel free to remind me of this in a week’s time but it would seem harsh to demand promotion from Division 3 and a Leinster Final place from Brian Flanagan in his first year in charge of the Kildare senior footballers.
There can be no sugar-coating Kildare’s 2024 performances which saw seven straight league defeats and scraping past Wicklow in the championship before Louth comfortably ended the provincial campaign.
Tailteann Cup hopes ran aground to a very ordinary Laois outfit at the quarter final stage. Miserable doesn’t even begin to describe the year.
We won’t go over old ground, and it wasn’t through a lack of effort that we ended up where we are, but when it comes to Flanagan’s first year my aspirations would be for us to witness a resurgent pride in the jersey, players taking responsibility on the pitch, and a team that looks organised with a clearly defined and understood way of playing. Each of those would represent progress.
Johnstownbridge man Flanagan, who represented the county 72 times at senior level between 2007 and 2013 before injury forced him to step back, hasn’t let the grass grow under his feet since his appointment.
No fewer than twelve players who saw League or Championship action in Glenn Ryan’s last year are gone from the panel for one reason or another.
Aaron O’Neill, Barry Coffey, Barry Kelly, Eoin Doyle, Jack Sargent, Kevin O’Callaghan, Killian Galligan, Mark Donnellan, Paddy Woodgate, Sam McCormack, Shane O’Sullivan and Shea Ryan have exited, though O’Sullivan remains with the development panel.
Flanagan’s success with the under-20’s in reaching two All Ireland Finals, winning one, was obviously a key factor behind his appointment and it is no surprise that he has promoted a clutch of those young players into the senior set-up.
In fact, eleven starters from the 2023 winning team are now on the panel. Harry O’Neill (Clane), Ryan Burke (Caragh), Shane Farrell (Kilcock) and Callum Bolton (Sarsfields) were already there under Ryan, but Flanagan has added Cormac Barker (Kilcullen), James McGrath (Athy), Jack McKevitt and Ryan Sinkey (both Naas), Colm Dalton (Sallins), Niall Dolan (Raheens) and Adam Fanning (Clane).
Add to those Luke Killian (Sallins), Brendan Gibbons (Kilcock), Darragh Swords (Caragh), Tommy Gill (Carbury) and Dean O’Donoghue (Celbridge) from the 2022 side which fell to a Canavan-inspired Tyrone in the final and Naas men Paddy McDermott and Alex Beirne from the less successful 2021 side and you have eighteen of the panel who came through Flanagan’s underage sides.
Outside of those there are also call-ups for Naas wing-back Eoin Lawlor, who like Sinkey is still under-20 this year and Cathal Hagney, the Nurney forward.
Aaron Browne, top scorer in the senior club championship, is arguably the most notable omission from that generation, though he is in college in Sligo and remains in and around the development panel. His chance will surely come.
It is the biggest influx of youth since Kieran McGeeney brought the 2013 under-21 side through en masse and patience will have to be a virtue, particularly given the depths we plunged in 2024.
There’s still plenty of experience there, helped by the return of David Hyland, Mark Dempsey and Brian McLoughlin while Jimmy Hyland and Ben McCormack have hopefully put their injury troubles behind them and will “feel like new signings” in soccer parlance.
With Donnellan and Doyle’s exits, Mick O’Grady takes the mantle of the most experienced panel member, in terms of games, with 108 league and championship appearances, though Niall Kelly (82 appearances) and Daniel Flynn (79) are the longest serving having made their debuts in the 2013 O’Byrne Cup.
David Hyland is behind O’Grady with 106 games, while his Athy clubmate and new county captain Kevin Feely is due to make his 100th appearance on Sunday.
With Donnellan’s exit, one of the intriguing questions coming into the new season, particularly with the new rules, is who will play in goals.
Only two ‘keepers have been named in the panel, Didier Cordonnier and Barker and they shared duties in the challenge games against Galway and Down, but Cordonnier is reportedly doubtful for Saturday’s opener against Fermanagh (5pm) having picked up a hamstring strain.
There have been rumours of outfield players trying out in goal in training, a-la Michael Murphy with Donegal. We will have to wait and see on that front, but Barker seems to be in the driving seat unless Cordonnier is fit.
Whatever about my earlier words about the need for patience as a new panel beds down, being the competitor he is, Flanagan will be eyeing up promotion and Kildare are, somewhat incongruously, clear 5/4 favourites with bookmakers ahead of Clare and Fermanagh on 5/1.
His side showed enough in the challenge against Galway to suggest they should be very competitive in the division and a draw with Down behind closed doors was a decent result against a Division 2 outfit, but a lot will depend on their performances away from the environs of Cedral St Conleth’s Park with four games scheduled away from the re-developed ground.
Indeed, twice in the campaign we have back-to-back away games, so Flano has been given nothing easy.
We follow up the Fermanagh home opener with a tricky looking trip to Markiewicz Park to take on an under-rated Sligo side who will have top two aspirations. Kildare could only manage a draw in their All Ireland group game there in 2023 and don’t have a great record generally against the Yeats men.
They retrace their steps up the N4 two weeks later with the trip to Ballinamore to face Leitrim who gave us a hard time in the Tailteann.
Laois at home offers an opportunity for revenge after that dire performance in Tullamore in June before we go on our travels again on the first weekend in March to face Clare in Ennis, arguably our toughest game of the campaign.
We never get anything easy there, either, and follow that with a trip to Tullamore to renew acquaintances with Offaly’s new joint manager Mickey Harte. They will get a bounce from that appointment, you’d imagine.
Rounding off the campaign, Antrim come to Newbridge on 23 March. Hopefully things will be shaping up nicely by then for a successful tilt at Leinster where a Dublin-free draw will offer some encouragement of a route to the provincial final and a return to the Sam Maguire Cup.
Patience is a virtue though.
Sat 25 Jan - Kildare v Fermanagh, Cedral St Conleths Park, 5pm Sun 2 Feb - Sligo v Kildare, Markievicz Park, 2pm Sun Feb 16 - Leitrim v Kildare, Páirc Seán Uí Eslín in Ballinamore, 2pm Sat Feb 22 – Kildare v Laois, Cedral St Conleths Park, 7pm Sun 2 Mar - Clare v Kildare, Cusack Park, 2pm Sun 16 Mar - Offaly v Kildare, O’Connor Park, Tullamore, 2pm Sun 23 Mar Kildare v Antrim, Cedral St Conleths Park 2pm
