Poignant Galway meeting shows benefits of staggered progression to Kildare

“It is frustrating because sometimes the lads worked so hard to get into those positions and for whatever reason, bad luck, lost concentration, a simple turnover happens… That’s bad enough in itself, but when the opposition score from it it’s almost like a double whammy. We’ve eradicated that a lot out of our game this year which is a sign of our development and improvement, it’s just an awful pity that it raised its ugly head today here again and it did cost us.”

placeholder image — “It is frustrating because sometimes the lads worked so hard to get into those positions and for whatever reason, bad luck, lost concentration, a simple turnover happens… That’s bad enough in itself, but when the opposition score from it it’s almost like a double whammy. We’ve eradicated that a lot out of our game this year which is a sign of our development and improvement, it’s just an awful pity that it raised its ugly head today here again and it did cost us.”

It will be a somewhat poignant end to the league this Sunday for Kildare, who welcome a team that they were being favourably compared to at this very stage last year. Both teams met in the final round of the league in 2017, both would be going up to Division 1 following a win for Galway. Both were seen as young teams with plenty of exciting options up front, good midfield combinations and defences that were steadily improving.

12 months on, the narrative has changed. Kildare’s relegation to Division 2 was confirmed on Saturday evening, while less than 24 hours later Galway were drawing with the reigning All-Ireland champions in Salthill in a shadow boxing match ahead of their league final against Dublin. Kevin Walsh’s team have taken the step up to Division 1 with ruthless composure, hitting the ground running on the opening weekend and never letting up as they have gone unbeaten despite being favourites for relegation alongside Kildare at the start of the league.

It offers an unfavourable contrast between the two teams, but, as ever these things must be looked at in relative terms.

Kildare certainly came up to Division 1 at least a year too early in their development. The Lilywhites have fluctuated between the tiers in recent years, never spending more than one season in a division since their relegation from the top tier in 2014. In comparison, Galway endured five years in Division 2 before their long-awaited promotion last year, finishing 3rd, 5th, 6th, 4th and 3rd again before eventually topping the pile. Their physical conditioning, gameplan and youth development was honed over their five-year stay in Division 2 purgatory; Kildare have not been afforded that, partly due to their own success.

Cian O’Neill lifted a side from Division 3 straight to Division 1 in two whirlwind seasons, playing an exciting brand of football that relied on the talent that was filtering through the underage ranks in recent years. Aside from a disappointing defeat to Westmeath in the 2016 Leinster semi-final, this young team had no huge setbacks to deal with until their loss to Armagh in last year’s All-Ireland Championship. Things have taken a turn for the worse since then however.

The Lilywhites are without a win since last June, and the confidence among the players looks quite low at this point. That is to be expected, and other than Daniel Flynn’s superb display against Kerry, the good form of the likes of Peter Kelly and Cian O’Donoghue, and the emergence of Kevin Flynn, there’s very few positives to take from the six games in the league so far.

“It is a setback in terms of our aspirations of being in the top eight of the country, if you look at it from that perspective,” Cian O’Neill remarked after relegation was confirmed on Saturday night.

“I was pleased that there was a fightback today after a really disappointing performance last week. Everyone knew that; we don’t need people from the outside telling us. That in itself is encouraging, that we came back into this week – OK, we were beaten by five points by a better team, but we showed aspects in our game when we really went at them and we asked them a lot of questions.

“From that perspective, the defeat is disappointing but it’s not demoralising – we have something to work on again in Tuesday’s session.”

Kildare’s progression will continue in Division 2 next year, where they could quite possibly be the only Leinster team in the second tier. Meath need to beat Down at home in Navan to avoid relegation alongside Louth, while Longford need a win in their final game in Division 3 to pip Fermanagh to promotion. For all the hiccups that Kildare have faced this year, things could be much worse.

On Sunday they will face a Galway side that have ascertained their status in Division 1 with consummate ease, and the feeling in both counties couldn’t be more different.

“I suppose there’s about a 10-point difference between where we are and where they are,” sighed O’Neill.

“They’ve had a phenomenal league, and full credit to Kevin and his management, but most importantly the players. We haven’t, we’ve had a really disappointing league and I don’t want to shy away from that fact. I don’t want it to be left unsaid that up until last week we were really competitive in every game we played.

“Ultimately, we just weren’t good enough, but we were competitive and we just had something good to work on in training. Last week was a blip alright, but we showed this week that we can be competitive again. We’re just not performing at the level where we need to be to win these matches. We’re close, but we’re not close enough really.”

Winning on Sunday will not make any difference to Kildare’s league standing, nor will it affect where Galway are, but ahead of this year’s Leinster Championship it would be some sort of boost.