"I’d have liked to have kept McNamee to no score at all"- Modest Hyland always looking for improvement

Even by his high standards, Kildare full-back David Hyland has been performing out of his skin so far this summer. Having kept the much vaunted Westmeath full-forward John Heslin scoreless from play in the Leinster semi-final, the Athy man then frustrated Offaly’s marquee forward, Niall McNamee, for large periods of Saturday evening’s exhilarating All-Ireland qualifier in St Conleth’s Park. The Rhode man scored just one point from play, but Hyland was a figure of modesty when he was praised for his performance after the game, complimenting those around him, while also suggesting he can do better.

“I suppose in the first half I was a bit off the pace. McNamee got a bit of a run on me, but once I grew into the game I was happy enough. That was majorly down to the lads around me. Peter[Kelly] gave me a big boost in the first half and then Ciaran Fitzpatrick came on and played a blinder. You have Ollie[Lyons] then as well, and Doyler; huge leaders around me and that brought me into the game,” began Hyland.

“I’d have liked to have kept McNamee to no score at all but I suppose it’s just something I need to work on. To get down to zero, that’s something you strive to do in training. Marking Neill Flynn, Niall Kelly and Chris Healy, I don’t see any reason they can’t be as successful as the two of them[Heslin and McNamee]. There’s huge competition in training so it can only stand to me on the pitch really.”

Manager Cian O’Neill said that Hyland’s point near the end of the victory over Offaly was the key moment in the game, and the UCD student had an interesting take on that score. He beat a number of Offaly defenders during a lung-busting run, and he retained enough composure to throw a shimmy and slot the ball confidently over the black spot.

“I was looking for a breather there all right. Coming to the 14 metre line I was looking for someone to take it off me, but I just said ‘here I’m after running the whole pitch and there’s no one to take it off me, I may as well have a go at it’. Lucky enough it came off, and we really built from that,” he said with a slight tone of humour in his voice.

Kildare will face one of Mayo, Cork or Longford in the next round of the qualifiers, and following the courageous win over their near neighbours, he insists that they don’t fear anyone.

“We showed real courage. It was different to other games when we might have dropped the heads when they got the goals, but that wasn’t the case. We’re looking forward to next week now and hopefully we’ll get a good draw. We’ll take anyone really because we have nothing to lose,” he said.