The life of Brian is happy but he’s not getting carried away

Although unbeaten after two games and three points on the Division 2 board, Kildare manager, Brian Flanagan, although happy, is not getting carried away at this early stage of the League campaign. 

“Derry won tonight and they’re coming to town in two weeks’ time and the focus will turn to that very quickly but in fairness where we are at right now, we couldn’t ask for anymore,” he declared.

Flanagan was very pleased with Saturday night’s performance although Offaly’s 15 minute second half would have to be looked at. 

“Probably in that 10/15-minute spell we were our own worst enemies. We were still in control and possession but we left a lot of scores behind us. It was the only patch in fairness, otherwise we were very controlled, very composed. The boys got to the pitch of the game very early and they probably set their stall out to say we’re going to play with energy and they brought the form of last week into it so I’m very happy from that point of view,” he said.

“With the new rules you have to keep a level up so you might as well throw as much as you can at the kick out. I thought we got on top of that early and it gave us a great springboard to develop the game and create scores. We probably left a good few behind us in the first half but 2-9 and it was hard to fault that,” he added.

The Johnstownbridge man had plenty of praise for his young defenders especially the three 20-year-olds in James Harris, Eoin Lawlor and Padraic Spillane. 

“I thought they were incredible last week and I thought they were even better tonight. You saw Padraic Spillane win every 50/50 that went in during the first half. Eoin Lawlor and the ball at the end. James Harris has won a world of breaks over the last seven days. Listen they’re brave young lads and we couldn’t ask any more from them at the minute.” 

Flanagan admitted that the Sigerson Cup has been a challenge for Kildare with Ryan Sinkey the latest to fall victim to injury although the extent is not known as yet. “We lost Ryan again during the week so Sigerson has had a big impact on us. We’re obviously a young squad. We had twelve or fifteen involved across all the colleges. That’s tough. I think it’s very unfair, to be honest, on managers and players alike, to have two serious competitions overlap over for a couple of weeks. We’re asking an awful lot of these lads. Eoin Cully picked up a knock on Wednesday night and we weren’t sure if he’d make it but he ends up getting through 70 minutes. It’s not for me to fix it but we try to be as fair as we could to the lads and yet we needed them to go out and do what they did tonight and fair play to everyone of them who did,” he told us.

The break to the Derry match has come at the right time according to Flanagan. 

“It’s been a tough six weeks since we came back, even weather and moving around pitches and Sigerson and all that. Listen that’s part of the challenge. You just have to roll with the punches and stay positive about it all. It’s been really enjoyable within our own set up but I’m really looking forward to a couple of days off for the group. Some lads need a bit of extra rest and they’ll definitely get it and we have five or six lads that we’ll be hoping will filter back in here within the next two three weeks.”