Kildare boss praises 'incredible' young guns after Offaly win

Kildare manager, Brian Flanagan, left, was very happy following Saturday's game but did concentrate on that period in the second half when Offaly came back at them reducing the lead to just four points.

That was the only patch in the game when we came under pressure, adding “we let a lot of scores behind us during that period but other than that we were in control, very composed, the boys got to the pitch of the game very early, set out their stall and played with energy, bringing last week's form into the game which was brilliant.”

The manager said that with the new rules keeping eleven up saw us dominate the kick-outs and that gave us a great spring-board but again we did leave a bit behind us in that opening half, but we scored 2-9 in that period so really you couldn't fault that but there was plenty of good stuff and now we just need to focus on two weeks time against Derry.

The manager reminded the local media in his after-match review that “you must not forget we had three 20-year-olds, James Harris, Eoin Lawlor and Padraic Spillane, I thought they were incredible last week against Tyrone and they were even better tonight.

“You saw Padraic Spillane winning every 50/50 ball in the first half, Eoin Lawlor won a great ball near the end, James Harris has won an amount of breaks over the last seven days they are all brave young lads and to be honest we couldn't ask any more of them at the minute.”

Flanagan admitted that it has been a very tough time over recent weeks, with lads being away in Sigerson, injuries, we are probably a bit like the walking wounded with all the injuries we have had; we lost Ryan Sinkey last week, Sigerson had a major impact on us, we had twelve or fifteen across all the various colleges.

“That is tough and I think that is very unfair on all managers and players as these competitions overlap for a number of weeks, because you are asking an awful lot of all these players; Eoin Cully picked up an knock on Wednesday night and to be honest we didn't know if he would make it tonight but he got through the seventy minutes but you really are asking a lot of those young players, I think it is very unfair on them, it is unfair on the managers, it is not for me to fix it but we tried to be as fair to the players as we possibly could.”

The manager added that a break of a week is something to look forward to, it has been tough but we are through that now look forward to a few days and then we could have five of six lads back with us in a couple of weeks time.”

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