Tricky Kerry clash Kildare's last hope of unlikely survival in Division 1

By the time this weekend concludes it will be a full nine months since a piping hot afternoon in Tullamore when Kildare produced a scintillating display to cut Meath to shreds in the Leinster Championship. Few would have thought back then that the Lilywhites would embark on a dismal run of results, losing twice in the championship, three times in the O’Byrne Cup and five times in this year’s National League.

Performances have been promising at times, but the second half display against Mayo last Sunday was one that hinted at a team that is struggling for confidence right now and had already made their peace with relegation to Division 2.

Being relegated is no disaster, but going down without a win in seven games would leave Kildare bereft of momentum heading into the Leinster Championship this year. Manager Cian O’Neill has consistently said that morale remains high in the panel in spite of the succession of defeats, but last Sunday he was a little more resigned after the loss to Mayo, particularly because of the performance.

“Things have been going well and we haven’t been that far away in those matches,” he said.

“There was huge disappointment but it wasn’t an issue. Today is a different type of performance and different type of defeat, and I said that to them on the pitch afterwards. This will be the biggest challenge for us as a group, coming back from a collapse in the second half if you want to call it that.

“That’s going to test us, it’s going to test myself, Enda and Roli and the management. It’s going to test the group of players as well because we’ve no bad luck story to fall onto here. No what ifs. We were comprehensively beaten all over the pitch by a better team. We didn’t fight to the end, and that’s the bigger disappointment. But that’s team sport, you either get up and fight or you feel sorry for yourself and we’re definitely not doing the latter.”

The Lilywhites are in Tralee tonight for their next game in the league, and they will encounter a Kerry side that have relegation worries of their own after losing three games in a row, the latest of which was a 13-point drubbing at the hands of Dublin. The Kingdom welcomed back David Moran last week and are sure to put out their strongest possible side as they seek a much-needed win, so Kildare are walking into a difficult arena once again.

O’Neill might have seen this as an opportunity to change things around with his team and test some players out in different positions. Kevin Flynn has stepped up well in the past two games, and there are plenty more who are surely gunning for a chance to impress. There will not be wholesale changes however, with the Kildare manager stating that starting places will only be given on merit. Indeed, the team that O'Neill has named for tonight's game shows just one change to the one that lined out against Mayo; whether or not that exact team takes the field remains to be seen.

“We’ve looked at every week as it stands,” said O’Neill.

“There were three changes today, which is 20 per cent of the team. We’ll look at options. Kevin Flynn got an opportunity against Donegal and was picked for today based on that. We were very unlucky to have to take him off because he got a yellow card and then a tick.

“To be honest, it was an example of good officiating where by the referee got word to the linesman who got word to me that ‘one more and he’s gone’.”

There is sure to be a raucous atmosphere in Kerry tonight given that it is St Patrick’s Day and Ireland are playing for a Grand Slam in the rugby, so it at least presents a good opportunity for a weekend away, even if it is a bit of a dead rubber from a Kildare point of view.