"I’ve no idea where that came from"- O’Neill refutes Kerry legend Ó’Sé’s claims over player commitment

Never has Cian O’Neill looked or sounded so deflated after a game. Kildare have faced setbacks under O’Neill’s management, but this one on Sunday felt very different. Losing to Carlow would have seemed utterly inconceivable this time last year, but there were few people genuinely shocked by the defeat in Tullamore.

The Lilywhites are in a downward spiral and this appears to be rock bottom right now, but there really is no base for this pit as the murky path of the qualifiers is yet to come. Kildare’s season could be over by the middle of June.

The last O’Neill would have wanted was questions raised over the commitment of his panel, and the Newbridge man batted off any such suggestions following the defeat to Carlow. Kerry legend Tomás Ó’Sé used his Irish Independent column to question whether or not Kildare have any leaders that are ready to stand up to the battle, while also suggesting that O’Neill invests too much scope in technology and data.

“My understanding is that commitment levels have left something to be desired in recent months and to lose seven games on the bounce in the league, admittedly some by narrow margins, just seems to have ripped the heart out of this Kildare team,” said Ó’Sé.

O’Neill was asked about the former Kerry player’s remarks following the defeat to Carlow, and he immediately dismissed them.

“Not a single shred,” he said when asked if there was any truth about a lack of commitment.

The experience of those two teams in their respective championships has reflected their efforts pumped into the league in recent years. In 2016, Roscommon focused their efforts on maintaining their Division 1 status and were eventually burnt out by the time it got around to the championship, losing a Connacht final replay to Galway in humiliating fashion before bowing out of the All-Ireland in their next game by suffering a shock loss to Clare. The following year saw the Rossies relegated from Division 1 as they looked to balance their year more evenly, and it paid dividends as they landed a Connacht title.

O’Neill was also asked if Ó’Sé might feel a sense of vindication over his comments on Kildare’s lack of leaders considering the performance against Carlow.

“It’s irrelevant what’s written, we can only focus on the match itself,” stated O’Neill.

“There were lots of leaders last year when we were getting promoted from Division 2 and nobody was talking about it. In today’s match we didn’t perform all over the pitch, from a costly error for their goal to our execution up front and poor tackling. They kicked many of their scores from frees, and that’s something we’ll need to look at ourselves again. We were outworked, outfought and outplayed, and that’s a travesty for the work the lads put in.

“It’s something I’ll need to look at from my own performance and as a management team and the backroom team. We all need to look at ourselves now because we’re in the back door and Kildare have been known as a back door team over the last number of years. It’s never the way you want to go but we’ve just got to turn it around and prepare for it, it’s inevitable.”

On the match itself, O’Neill didn’t mince his words and certainly spoke openly and honestly. He described it as ‘catastrophic and shocking’, and generally pondered where it all went wrong, without being able to come up with an explanation.

“It was a catastrophic performance from our end,” he said.

“You have to give Carlow credit for how they performed, but I can only think about us. It was shocking. It’s certainly not how we trained or how we prepared – very often a performance can be a reflection on that. I honestly just can’t put my finger on it. We missed 1-4 in the first half from dead balls alone, but I suppose that’s the thing in a sport like this that when you start missing those easy chances it can spread throughout the team. That is potentially what happened. Our shooting in the first half was 24 per cent. We were chasing the game in the second half against the breeze and that’s not a position you want to be in against a team that has 13 or 14 behind the ball. They did their job and we didn’t turn up for ours.”

Credit must go to the Kildare manager for the time he afforded reporters following the game. He spoke for almost 10 minutes and fielded every question put to him with clarity and honesty. Many other managers may not have done the same considering the nature of the defeat to Carlow.