PREVIEW: An air of confidence surrounds Kildare ladies ahead of new season

There was a definite air of confidence among members of the Kildare Ladies management team and players, as they met on Sunday morning last for a pre-league chat with the local press at Manguard Park, Hawkfield.

Manager Pat Sullivan was present along with team captain Laoise Lenehan, vice-captain Ruth Sargent and members of the Leadership Team.

The girls had just finished another training session as they look forward to their opening game, this Sunday, when they travel to the Munster Technological University Arena in Cork to take on the home side, a game that throws-in at 2pm.

“We are happy where we are at the moment and no, I wouldn't change anything from where we are” was how manager Sullivan summed up how his team feel headed into their league opener.

Division 1 is where we want to be, says Pat, and while he acknowledges the task in hand, reminding us that Cork have won something like 12 of the last 25 titles, so yes a big game, but one we are looking forward to, adding “Kildare have contested just one season in Division 1, have won none, but we proved last year where we won three games, lost two by a point, so very close but we move on, everyone knows now what to expect from Kildare.”

A few players have stepped away, Róisín Byrne just for a year, while Ellen Dowling and Claire Sullivan have retired but manager

Sullivan says “Looking across the club championships I am very happy with what we have in our squad.
“We have different mixes of ability, of talent and what is really encouraging in the squad at the moment is the competition is high, the performance set-up between each player is to get the best out of each of them and the talent in the squad will make picking 30 next week very tough, so we are not looking back at last year's championship or league or the panel we had last year, there is a very high turn-over at county level in Ladies football but now, with the squad we have taken in, we are very happy.”

The manager said that Kildare are lucky to have so many leaders in the squad and so many girls are willing to take on leadership roles. Laoise Lenehan, an incredible leader, again this year's captain and we are very fortunate to have two vice-captains in Ruth (Sargent) and Ciara (Wheeler) so really a super set-up in that leadership team.

Captain
Captain, Laoise Lenehan insisted that “we have loads of leaders on the field, Molly (Aspell) steps up, Alanna (Prizeman), Ruth (Sargent) Hazel (McLoughlin), Aoife (Rattigan) I think the captain is just the person that just goes in for the toss but we have no shortage of leaders, which is brilliant.”

Laoise recalls that “this time last year we were talking about just staying up, this year I feel we can definitely push on, we have last year behind us, we reached the All-Ireland quarter-final, we played an unbelievable Armagh team and beat them; yes, we fell short to Kerry but I definitely feel we can push on. The opening block of three games (against Cork, Armagh and Galway) will tell us a lot but and we can push on and I am very happy where we are at the moment.”

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New rules
Part of the leadership team is Alannah Prizeman (Naas), Ruth Sargent, Hazel McLoughlin (Eadestown) and they are all looking forward to playing under the rules which come into force at the start of the league and will be reviewed after the initial three games.

Hazel admitted that so far so good, “we have tried them in training and in challenge games; they will certainly speed up the game; they will give athletic players more of a chance to get forward, but also get back, and it makes it better for spectators, an opportunity to show off the skills of the game that little bit more.”

Alannah said she felt the solo and go rule is a key change, as is the three-up and three-back, those will make the communications on the field vital happy that “we have been working on those, and the rest of the game, throughout our training, it is very exciting to get going next week and see how all the teams get on with those changes.”