'We are at an early stage of our development' insists Kildare boss Flanagan
The Leinster Leader spoke with a bitterly disappointed Kildare boss after his sides All-Ireland series defeat to Galway in Salthill
Kildare manager, Brian Flanagan, in fairness did not waste time in chatting the pressing matters following Saturday’s shattering defeat at the hands of Galway.
There’s a lot of history between these two teams over the last 20 or 25 years and Galway manager Pádraic Joyce, who now lives in Kildare, has been at the heart of it.
Needless to say Kildare boss Brian Flanagan was bitterly disappointed, not just with the result but with the display, with the unforced errors and with the many turn-overs.
“Obviously disappointed” was the manager’s initial reaction, adding “you look at the score board after 70 minutes and thirteen points between the sides, that’s not pretty, very disappointed with that aspect and then I feel the fourth quarter definitely got away from us, probably ran out of legs, the turn-over count definitely hit us very hard, Galway are extremely athletic, hard-running, experienced team, and they were very ruthless in their finishing, so overall very disappointed but having said there are elements from the game game we will take as positives.”
Kildare, who played with strong wind in the first half and in fairness hit some impressive two-pointers but it was the two goals conceded that really hurt Kildare’s problems, something that the manager referred to.
"The two goals were absolutely killers and again, one of them coming off a turn-over, you have the ball in our own half and you really need to ensure that every possession goes dead against an experienced side such as Galway, if it goes wide you can gain some time, re-set and go again but turn-overs at the back hands the opposition an opportunity to attack at speed and against a side of this calibre you are going to be punished time and time again.”
The Johnstownbridge man said that turn-overs are so crucial and when you are playing a side with an explosive attack like Galway it is imperative that such play is curtained to the minimum, something we did not do today unfortunately, and when turn-overs are coming at the rate of seven or eight times in a half and you are chasing back 100 meters you are eventually going to fatigue and that is exactly what happened today.
“It was a very difficult wind to play into and that’s for sure” said the manager adding “you really have to get the ball to within 25 meters before shooting, that was a challenge in itself but look when Galway get into their flow and in that fifteen minute period going down the stretch they were ruthless and simply put us to bed.”
A team relegated from Division 2 coming up against an experienced top Division 1 side was also going to be difficult and the manager admitted that. “It’s a concentration and consistency thing” he said, “definitely the condition comes into it, we are early on in our development and that is where we want to get to, you need to be on it for 70 minutes, you can’t drop off for 10-15 minute breather, you need to have quality when in possession, cut down those turn-overs, you might get away with two or three of those against lesser opposition but you simply will not get away with that against the better teams.”
A big decision before a ball was kicked was to bring in Eoin Sheehan for his first game at this level in either league or Championship and the manager said that “while we conceded three goals you couldn’t blame Eoin for any of them and he did pull off two or three excellent saves, one or two from under the crossbar as well, while his kick-outs for his first day in, I thought he showed plenty of confidence in himself, we are developing a panel, he has been doing well in training and we felt this was the time to give him his chance.”
On the 13 point gap between the sides, the manager said “we shot ourselves in the foot for those two goals, so I don’t believe there is a thirteen point gap between us and them but we are at an early stage of our development, this was always going to be a big ask but we had good moments and for 50-55 minutes that was a very competitive game until they pulled away in the final quarter.”