Frustrated O'Neill admits nerves and failure to bag goals played their part in Kildare defeat

It was a narrow defeat in the end, but not one that could be considered unfair as Kildare simply failed to do enough to beat Galway and land the league title on Sunday.

There were numerous factors in the Kildare performance that fused together to ensure the Division 2 title would not be coming back to Lilywhite country for the second time in five years, and their manager, Cian O’Neill, went through each of them one by one following the game.

The most damaging spell of the game came between the 55th and 65th minutes when Galway scored five points in a row to wipe out Kildare’s three-point lead and surge into the ascendancy themselves, something they never recovered from.

“Very disappointed, simply because it was a tight match right the way through,” was how O’Neill described the feeling in the dressing room afterwards.

“It was always going to be nip and tuck; a point here and two points there. Unfortunately we didn’t close it out even though we battled really hard in the second half to go up by three, but we stopped playing then and we lost that edge that had taken us there.

“I don’t know, maybe you could tell me, but there was 10 or 12 minutes there where we didn’t score. I think that was costly because then Galway kicked on with three or four points and it just left us with too much to do at the end, we ran out of time.”

Then there was the fact that Kildare again failed to find the back of the net. It’s the third game in a row that they’ve not troubled the opposition goalkeeper too much; a stark contrast to the free-flowing menacing look that the forward line had in the first five rounds of the league where they averaged more than two goals each game.

O’Neill noted that the loss of a few key forwards was crucial to that problem, with both Daniel and Neill Flynn missing each of those three games, while Ben McCormack has also had his problems with injury.

“The last few matches we haven’t hit the back of the net. Obviously we’ve lost some of our attacking threat through Daniel’s injury, Neill’s injury and Ben came off today. They’ve been three big performers all league in fairness to them,” explained O’Neill.

“Also we didn’t probably penetrate as much as we should have from deep today, which is where they caused us most problems to be fair. Every match we’ve scored a goal in this year we’ve won, we just didn’t even challenge their ‘keeper today which is disappointing.

“But this is a young team, this is a very, very young team, and they’ve exceeded all expectations in terms of finishing in the top two and being promoted. I think today, in retrospect, is going to be all about learning and not just the fact that we lost the match.”

Both Cathal McNally and David Slattery had positive impacts for the Lilywhites after replacing the injured duo of Ben McCormack and Paul Cribbin early in the second half, but it was Galway’s bench that made the bigger impact as Michael Daly chipped in with two vital points and former captain Gareth Bradshaw also raised a white flag.

“I think the way that the second half ramped up in terms of intensity the bench was always going to be important,” mused O’Neill who went on to speak about how frustrated it was to see the players working so hard and not getting the basics right at crucial times.

“Everyone that came on for us worked hard, they tried to make a difference, but some shots just didn’t come off. They kicked a couple of long range shots and they nailed them, they definitely got more value there. I think throughout the match we had a lot of opportunities and we didn’t take them. What killed us was our turnovers and their ability to counterattack off them.”

Niall Kelly was outstanding as he chipped in with 0-5 from play for Kildare.

Another factor of the performance that was highlighted in O’Neill’s post-match musings was the fact that some of the players felt nervous going out into their first major game in Croke Park. With the vast majority of the side under 25 that is perhaps understandable, but O’Neill feels the experience will stand to them and hopes that they will learn plenty from their outing in headquarters.

“Absolutely,” he responded when asked if he thought some players were nervous.

“I felt both teams were to be honest, but I felt it particularly when we came back onto the pitch for the pre-match warm up. I just felt there was a little bit of nerves there, and it was a nervy first half to be fair. In the second half we threw the shackles off a small bit, but as I said, some of the basic things that we just didn’t get right. That’ll happen, and Galway played as well as they had to to win the match, so it’s just a pity that we didn’t perform as well as we can because it would have been nice to see the lads in Croke Park do that.

“It’s a very young team, and although some of them might have played here in Leinster Minor finals and U21 finals, it’s a different occasion when you’re playing senior for your county. I think there’s probably a bit of that there today. A bit of reticence; it’s a final, it’s a big match. That could have been part of it too.

“But as I said, the key thing is that when we leave here will have to be how we can learn and improve from that because we did a lot of good things today and we kicked a lot of good scores and worked very hard for long periods. We’ll focus on those two, but there’s a couple of things… sometimes you’ll take a lot more in a defeat and we’re certainly going to do that today.”

There was also a slight over-reliance on Niall Kelly to get scores, with no other Kildare player chipping in with more than a single point from play. The Athy star scored five points from play in a sublime individual performance, and O’Neill acknowledged that his team needs to spread the load a bit more in the future.

“That was a problem. Not enough people probably stood up and gave an attacking threat. We had opportunities, we created opportunities but we probably just lacked that bit of penetration. Galway had a couple of good goal chances and Mark made some super saves, and I’m just disappointed that we didn’t trouble them once or twice there either. We didn’t spread the load,” he said.

Looking ahead, there’s a long way now until Kildare play the winners of Laois and Wicklow in the Leinster Championship quarter-final. That game won’t be played until June 4, so O’Neill is releasing all the players back to their clubs and at least one round of championship will be played on the Kildare club scene between now and then.

He will be keeping an eye out for any potential additions to his panel, but his main concern is that all of his key players remain fully fit over the next seven weeks.

“The key thing for us is keeping everybody healthy and fit. I think you could see that when we picked up a couple of unfortunate injuries towards the latter part of the league our performances have dipped, so it’s crucial that we have our top players on the pitch and that will be our priority going forward. The squad will be relatively unchanged; we’ll be at these club matches to see if we can unearth anyone else and see if we can give anyone an opportunity.”