'It has been a tough few weeks' - Brian Flanagan relieved after Kildare book Leinster semi-final spot

It was a very relieved Brian Flanagan who met the local press following his side’s victory over Laois on Sunday that sees The Lilies book a place in a Leinster Senior Football Championship semi-final.

There is little doubt that Flanagan had been under immense pressure since his last outing, a defeat at the hands of Louth that saw Kildare relegated to Division 3 of the Allianz Football League come 2027.

Add in an inordinate number of injuries the side has suffered, not only in the last number of weeks but throughout the entire season and it is very easy to see why the Johnstownbridge man looked like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

"It has been a tough few weeks for sure” admits the manager, adding “such is life, but today’s win will be the makings of us, we knew the importance of today's result and it sort of justifies everything over the last while, we can really plough into the next two weeks. We'll hopefully filter some of those injuries back in, some of them are very close luckily, but we just couldn't risk them today.”

In the latter stages of the Allianz League there is little doubt that Kildare played lads that were just coming back from injury, while not one hundred per cent and it seems they have learned from that as the manager admitted.

"Learning the lessons from the last couple of months, if someone wasn't fully right we weren't going to put them out there today. We trusted the lads who had put the training in the last two or three weeks and performed well in training camp, in-house games, challenge games, everything else and I was delighted that they came through.

"I suppose the benefit of where we were in the league and everything else was we felt it mirrored a lot of what happened in the first half of the Derry game. There was a lot of emotion in that first half (v Derry), lads sent off, yellow cards, black cards, missed chances, everything else but we brought a real calmness I think at half-time this time around and it was what we need to fix, what we need to do to get over the line here and the boys went down and did it.”

This group said Flanagan is “unbelievably resilient for their age and I'd have to give them massive credit that over the last four weeks to be relegated in the league, it can knock groups, you know, you can have players go missing and we didn't have any of that, we had a group that stuck together, nobody blamed anyone, there was no pointing the fingers, it was just let's get on with it, what's the next challenge and the prep went really well.”

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Following the flare-up after the half-time whistle the manager was asked if he was worried their might be repercussions when the game would resume?

"No, we got word just before that it was going to be two yellows for the lads so that at least put us at ease and that meant that you could plan 15 v 15 as opposed to being a man down or up or anything like that so that put us at ease and we just got on with planning for the second half."

Did you go looking for information or was it really up to you?

"We went looking for it and were informed it would be two yellow cards.”

You've had fellas who have had an interrupted year due to injuries like Tommy Gill, James McGrath and then Ben McCormack coming in off the bench and they all had huge impacts as well.

"They did and we knew we'd need it. Ben certainly brought it, Kevin Feely, everyone who came in did well and that has to be the way.”

As for the semi-final, Brian Flanagan said “I just wanted to be there prepping, getting ready, we'll recover here in the next day or two and we'll go again they will be looking at us but look it is just brilliant to be in this position” added on relieved and delighted manager.