Proud O'Neill looking ahead to step 3 of 7 following weekend win over Cork

A win over Cork is welcome in any circumstances, but Kildare's victory over the Rebels on Sunday afternoon felt like somewhat of a watershed moment. Last year there were plenty of times when the Lilywhites surrendered winning positions and let the opposition back in, with opponents much weaker than Cork taking advantage of a perceived lack of mental strength and composure from within the Kildare ranks.

Manager Cian O'Neill had pointed to that as one of the key things he had to address if Kildare were to enjoy a prosperous 2017, and on the evidence of the first two games of the National League they have done just that. They led by seven points midway through the second half, and when Cork eventually enjoyed a purple patch and cut the deficit to just a couple of points, supporters started to shuffle uneasily in their seats. The home side never panicked though, and they went on to kick five of the last six scores to earn a rather comfortable six-point win, and the mettle they showed in the face of Cork momentum was the most pleasing thing for O'Neill.

"It was a really good win, a very important win for us," began O'Neill.

"I suppose there was a lot of doubt about this group of players. Certainly not from within, but from outside the setup which is just noise to us, but it's inevitable that it creeps in. I heard a quote this week that Kildare don't have a good record in St Conleth's Park, which to me was quite shocking considering it's our home ground. A lot of stuff comes within earshot when you're in Kildare.

"So it was important to put two wins back to back, whether it's in St Conleth's or not. I thought the lads worked incredibly hard -particularly in the second half- to make that happen. Because if it didn't work for us today it would have been the usual 'ah yeah Kildare were very good last week and now they're back to themselves'.

"So I think we proved a lot of doubters wrong, but I think the most important thing is that we proved to ourselves that we're moving in the right direction. It's still only another two points, it's only step two of seven, but they just showed something different this week."

While the victory over Meath was quite impressive, especially when you consider that they dismantled Derry by 3-15 to 0-9 on Sunday afternoon, the triumph over Cork proved to their manager that there was a real steel and togetherness about the side that he hadn't really seen before.

"Meath had a bit of a run on us last week but never got past five, so we were reasonably happy with that, but this week we were really tested. We lost two kickouts in a row, which rarely happens, and they got that goal. It really was a moment where leaders had to step up and stand up. I think we did that, it was crucial we win the next kickout and we did that, launched an attack and tagged over a point. That was really pleasing," he said.

Having put in two impressive performances back to back, O’Neill was questioned on how they have achieved such a fine start to the league and why it seems that they have more composure when the finishing line is in sight. He pointed to two main factors when it came to the upturn in performances, highlighting a growing maturity within the group and the availability of the county’s main players.

“There's a greater maturity within the group- the majority of our squad is 24 and younger. I think last year all the trials and tribulations stood a lot to that. We have a core group of about 10 players from the starting 15 that are in that age bracket.

“Lads are just stepping up. I think a lot that was overlooked, I've said it before last year, is that we're playing matches with central figures like Paul Cribbin, Daniel Flynn, Kevin Feely, Niall Kelly and Keith Cribbin. They weren't there last year, we didn't have them, so when you have guys with that quality back in with the group that was there last year, it's a massive boost.”

Asked if there were any main positives to take away from the win over Cork that weren’t evident in the win over Meath, O’Neill pointed to the defensive resilience of his Kildare team as the improvement from seven days previous.

“Last week we produced some fantastic attacking football, but lets be honest, Meath were poor. So I think defensively we didn't look too much into that because they didn't turn up themselves. But we played really good offensively. This week, what we're really pleased about is that we dug in, we got stuck in. Conditions were tough and there was 15 bodies flying around there and when our mettle was tested we came up good, and that's the most pleasing thing from today.”

“Meath and Cork are probably two of the top three along with Galway that would be fancied to go up. Today was a big one for us, because you have a team that's just come up from Division 3 to 2 against a team that has gone down from Division 1, so I think that was a statement from our perspective in so far as that we shouldn't fear anyone, we should just go out and play and perform. As I said, it was different to last week, but it was a real gutsy performance and we'll take that.”