O'Callaghan highlights need to stop leaking goal chances following Kildare ladies defeat

Kildare ladies manager Morgan O'Callaghan believes that his side have plenty of work to do on the defensive side of their game if they are going to put up a meaningful challenge against Westmeath next weekend, having watched the Lilywhites suffer a 2-13 to 2-8 defeat to Laois in O'Connor Park on Sunday afternoon.

There were plenty of things about Kildare's performance to draw positives from, and the fact that they gave a good account of themselves on their first appearance at the senior grade will have pleased the manager, but the fact that they served up at least four scoreable goal chances to the O'Moore County means that there are issues to work on.

"With a game next week we have to look at the positives but we also have to address the things that didn't go so well, and I suppose the biggest one of those is tracking runners," remarked O'Callaghan.

"They caught us coming from deep on several occasions. We have a lot of players that will run at full tilt when they're driving forward, but we just need to work with them to get them to realise they have to run just as hard when they're coming back. Especially against a running team like Laois who have speed coming from everywhere, and in fairness they have a few powerful runners and that definitely caused us problems throughout the game."

On the other hand, Kildare had goal chances themselves and they did raise as many green flags as their opponents, but in a game like this they were always going to need absolute efficiency on front of goal.

"We had two great goal chances ourselves; Grace Clifford got through a couple of times and probably will be disappointed herself that she didn't finish one of them, if not two," said O'Callaghan.

"The 'keeper made a superb save for one too that she tipped over the crossbar. Look, we had our own goal chances but there's no hiding that Laois had goal chances in the first half. In fairness to both defences, they battled hard to get some sort of a touch or a block or a little bit of a nudge on a player to make it awkward."

Kildare had a number of new players involved today who didn't play in the National League, and the injection of fresh blood was well needed after suffering relegation by losing each of their spring games, and the new players performed capably.

Orlaith Kirwan, who did play in the league, was earmarked for special praise by her manager, as was substitute Louise Scully who also made a good impact.

"They made a good impact, and some of our subs did really well too. Orlaith Kirwan worked really hard in the first half and did a lot of good things, and several other players throughout the game[did well]. Louise Scully made a great impact when she came on and it suited her style. She's full of running, she's quick and it opened up as the game was quite loose and it suited her getting on balls and taking on players and getting into space," said O'Callaghan.

Kildare will be without two key components of last year's All-Ireland winning team however for next weekend's meeting with Westmeath however. Rachel Cribbin is working her way back from Osteitis Pubis, while Eadaoin Connolly is heading to the US for the summer months.

"Rachel unfortunately has been out for quite a while," explained O'Callaghan.

"She just literally came back this week doing light training, so she's been out since the Waterford game and will be out for quite a while yet. She's only back her first week jogging.

"It's a big challenge and unfortunately we're down a couple of players. Eadaoin Connolly is heading to America for the summer, we've known that all year, but she'd agreed to stay on board until now.

"We'll have to assess how knocks and niggles are and what way players are. It was a tough battle out there today, the bodies will be sore and tired after it."