How the Kildare ladies fell short in opening championship clash

TG4 All-Ireland intermediate championship

Longford 3-9

Kildare 1-9

A poor opening half and two preventable second half goals saw Kildare fall victim to Longford in their opening TG4 Intermediate All-Ireland Championship leaving them with a mountain to climb in their second tie away to Roscommon in a weeks’ time.

Louise Monaghan who opened the scoring with Longford hitting an early advantage in the third minute. A second into the Kilcullen end from Monaghan saw Longford quickly into a two-point advantage before Michelle Farrell became involved in the action.

With Kildare operating at a pedestrian pace Longford took full advantage with two pointed frees from Farrell pushing them four clear as it looked harder and harder to see where Kildare were going to get any scores.
Kildare's Aoife Rattigan took control moments later to open the home side's account. A point on thirteen minutes, their first of the afternoon cut the deficit to three.

Longford again soon seized control. Points from Clodagh Lohan and Farrell had Kildare five behind before 20 minutes were played. And worse was still in store. With Sarah Shannon in possession she cut across the face of the Kildare goal, spotting Lohan unmarked Shannon fisted over the head of Shauna Kendrick. Gathering Lohan made no mistake with the finish past Dervla McGinn.

Adding a further point Farrell put nine between the sides.
An exchange of scores from Rattigan and Katie Crawford did little to change the score line as Kildare were completely out of the contest.

Off the pace and unable to get the ball into their attacking threat of Neasa Dooley it was hard to see how things would change for Kildare.

Que a late first half substitution with Lauren Murtagh replacing Fiona Troute, the whole Kildare response changed. With Murtagh immediately getting involved in the action setting up captain Grace Clifford for a point.

Moments later it was sisters Ciara and Gillian Wheeler who looked to make the difference, a long ball over the top of Shauna McCormack to the waiting Gillian, allowed the St Laurence's player to drop her opposite number and with time of her side she picked her place to strike and Kildare were back within five.

With time ticking quickly to the break Kildare looked to make the score line even healthier with Dooley striding in on Ruth Jones, deflecting Dooley’s shot to Clifford her strike wasn’t hard to take it over the line. The waiting Dooley looked to fist over, but with her strike ruled out for a square ball Kildare trailed by five at the break.

On the restart, a Lara Curran free left four between them.
Longford, having not scored since the latter stages of the opening half were again beginning to work their way back into the tie and Sarah Shannon pointed to cancel Curran early effort.

From the kick out it was a keeper’s nightmare, as McGinn could only find Lohan with her kick out, Lohan took on the challenge and broke forward shooting McGinn blocked the effort with her foot only for the rebound making its way back to Lohan who made no mistake the second time of asking.

A point from Clifford looked to again steady the Kildare ship but to no avail as Longford quickly got Michelle Farrell back in possession, striding past four Kildare defenders unchallenged Farrell netted to leave the travelling side ten points clear with fifteen minutes remaining in the tie.

A Lara Curran point narrowed this moments later as Kildare were unable to build on this to narrow the gap.
Unable to break the Longford for a further ten minutes, late points from Rattigan and Curran only served to make the losing margin more presentable as Longford’s two second half goals was the difference at the death as Kildare now look towards an away tie against Roscommon.

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Manager Sean Finnegan's post-match reaction

With a season of ups, Kildare finally faced a tough challenge in Longford and for the first time this season they capitulated and fell to the performance of the travelling side.

After failing to get on the score board for 13 minutes and also trailing by nine points after t25. They were faced with a mountain they were not able to overcome.
manager Sean Finnegan was at odds as to what to make of his sides display.

“I need to go home and sit down and watch it again” reflected a shell shocked Finnegan “from the get go we were lifeless.”
It took Kildare 28 minutes to make any impression on the tie but in that opening period gave Finnegan many causes for concern.

“We had no energy, we were dropping balls, I don’t know (what happened) off the top of my head, but I’ll quickly have to find out.”

With the performance at times being almost pedestrian Finnegan felt it is something he has seen come into his side over that past few weeks.

“I’ve seen it the last few weeks, ‘I don’t want to be blaming things but the girls have been playing so much football the last six weeks between club and county, they just look tired.
“All of the girls that have played there have played eight or nine games in the last month, that is absolutely too much’ stated Finnegan ‘I don’t want to lay the blame squarely at that, but it is not helping.”

Scorers:

Kildare, Gillian Wheeler 1-0; Aoife Rattigan 0-3; Lara Curran 0-3 (2f); Grace Clifford 0-2; Lara Gilbert 0-1.

Longford, Michelle Farrell 1-4 (4f); Clodagh Lohan 2-1; Louise Monaghan 0-2; Sarah Shannon 0-1; Katie Crawford 0-1.

KILDARE: Dervla McGinn; Clare Nugent, Laoise Lenehan, Rachel Cribbin; Mia Doherty, Lara Gilbert, Fiona Troute; Grace Clifford, Hazel McLoughlin; Ciara Wheeler, Aoife Rattigan, Shauna Kendrick; Neasa Dooley, Gillian Wheeler, Lara Curran. Subs: Lauren Murtagh for Troute, 28; Ellen Dowling for McLoughlin, 30; Orlaith Sullivan for Wheeler, 42; Niamh Sinnott for Cribbin, 53; Mary Hulgraine for Dowling, 64.

LONGFORD: Ruth Jones; Shuana McCormack, Emma Doris, Sorcha Dawson; Clare Farrell, Leanne Keegan, Katie Crawford; Mairead Victory, Mairead Reynolds; Aisling Cosgrove, Clodagh Lohan, Emer Heaney; Michelle Farrell, Sarah Shannon, Louise Monaghan. Subs: Ciara Mulligan for Cosgrove, 56; Eimear O’Brien for McCormack, 56; Kamille Burke for Shannon, 58; Megan Jobe for Monaghan, 61.