"We definitely need to start developing more forwards that can perform on the big stage"- O'Neill on new Kildare recruits

The new manager has promised to play a direct style of football, and although it was only the O'Byrne Cup, he stayed true to those words in his first three games of the year. It will be interesting to see if there is a sweeper used in any game, but early indications are that it is not a system that O'Neill intends on trying out.

placeholder image — The new manager has promised to play a direct style of football, and although it was only the O'Byrne Cup, he stayed true to those words in his first three games of the year. It will be interesting to see if there is a sweeper used in any game, but early indications are that it is not a system that O'Neill intends on trying out.

Kildare senior football manager Cian O'Neill admits that it will not be easy to blood some of the new players he has brought in the panel ahead of the 2018 season as the Lilywhites prepare for a monumental battle in the heady heights of Division 1.

With 10 new players coming into the initial training panel and six dropping out from 2017's squad, there is something of a changing of the guard taking place over the close season. The bulk of the players being called in are youngsters who have never played at senior level for the county, though the likes of Eoin Powderly and Mark Sherry have some experience playing under O'Neill.

Looking at the additions to the squad, there seems to be a greater amount of defenders coming in rather than attackers. That's to be expected when the likes of Ollie Lyons, Shea Ryan and Darren Maguire have all exited, but O'Neill explained how he would have liked to have freshened things up in attack, before noting that some top class forwards need to be developed.

"We have a generation of young players coming through; definitely a lot more guys that we see with potential from a defensive perspective than an attaching perspective," said O'Neill.

"So we’ve a lot more guys that we wanted to have a look at and we just needed to freshen things up, particularly in defence. I would love to freshen things up in attack, but I think in Kildare at the moment a lot of guys are coming through are from 1-9 out – we definitely need to start developing more forwards that can perform on the big stage. We have some of them now that are very young."

Giving those new players opportunities in Division 1 could be a difficult task as Kildare go in with the clear objective of remaining in the top tier following two promotions in a row under O'Neill. Looking back to last year there was very little chance for the management team to thrust new players into the team as Kildare were battling for promotion right until their final round league game against Galway, where a number of youngsters were given their first starts in a Lilywhite jersey.

"Make no mistake about it, last year was a challenge in Division 2," said O'Neill.

"If you remember two years ago in my first year we pretty much had at least seven changes every week which we felt we could do because I felt we could win every match in Division 3, and rightly so. Every player got at least two matches and most of them were involved in four two years ago. Last year that wasn’t the same because after the first couple of matches we were really challenging and you feel ‘OK, we could really do something here in Division 2’.

"It does limit chances, but it’s up to us in the management with Roli[Sweeney] and Enda[Murphy] to look at our schedule, look at the matches and try and get these lads as much minutes as possible. I do think the lads not being involved in the pre season competitions, the O’Byrne Cup, is important this year because we can look at them every match and we have squad rotation where we can look at players in the three matches."