Meath will be confident says Kildare boss after disappointing showing

Kildare manager Pat Sullivan was visibly dispirited after his sides 4-12 to 1-5 loss to Dublin Cedral St Conelth’s Park. The Waterford-native was far less concerned with the result compared to the performance of The Lilies in the Leinster Championship opener.

He said, “We would be disappointed to be honest. We did a lot of things today that we have worked on not doing. When you come up against a team like Dublin, in terms of ability, they will force you to the limit, but we are a better squad than that.

That wasn’t us there today that is for sure. We just have to park it now straight now because we have Meath here next Sunday and that is going to be a massive battle for us. Winner takes all now, winner gets to the Leinster final. But yeah…disappointed.”

The Lilies boss was frank about his sides shortcomings with Kildare coughing possession and indeed goals all too easily in this game.

“We were very open. We gifted them two goals, but we’ll review that Tuesday night and learn from it. When you move the ball at pace, get caught, then don’t close the channels, that is what happens to you and that is what they did. We have to really make sure that come next Sunday that doesn’t happen to us. We are in a situation where we need to get out of this hole,” Sullivan said.

“Meath will look at this game today and be very confident coming here. Their squad are on the go for over two years with their management and they are hot favourites to come here and just turn us over and get to play Dublin again. We have to try and stop that.”

For all the issues surrounding performance just passed, Sullivan added that Sunday's clash with Meath is a chance to put things right.

He said, “In fairness to the squad, we had some games in the league where we didn’t do what he had been doing in training or in the previous game, but they came back the following game and rectified that. That is what you’re hoping come next week, that we will rectify what we did wrong today and we are very lucky to have that opportunity.”

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