HANDS UP, I didn’t that result coming on Saturday night in Thurles.
I thought Kildare would push Cork hard yet if Cork produced a repeat of their drawn Munster final performance, the sense was Kildare would struggle.
Kildare came into the game with a lot of confidence though and had no fear of a Cork team that are after losing a lot of household names in the last few years. Kildare put up a big score against Longford and the confidence from that win was definitely apparent.
I’m wondering what happened to Cork since the drawn game with Kerry? They were abysmal, showed no fight and looked leaderless.
When you’re beaten in your provincial championship, you have to bury that and go as hard as you can in the All-Ireland series. Most teams would try to approach it that way.
Subconsciously I think Cork may have felt that they’d be alright getting past this round. They probably underestimated Kildare and there was a lot of talk going around about them playing Dublin.
When you’re in the championship cauldron and things are going wrong, a game can snowball away from you very quickly. That happened to Cork. I just felt their work rate wasn’t there. Kildare brought the intensity and hunger, and that won the day.
I couldn’t understand Cork’s tactic of playing Paul Kerrigan so deep in a sweeper role. Fair enough doing that against a Kerry team that contained Kieran Donaghy but Kildare are a different team and his type of direct running could really have hurt Kildare.
The losses of James Loughrey and Alan O’Connor early in the game hit Cork really badly. Kildare dominated midfield. Paul Cribbin’s engine is a massive plus, very few footballers will stay with him for the hour.
He’s a freak of nature with the distances he can clock up. Tommy Moolick gets in for the rough and tumble, and the pair of them really complement each other.
When Paul came back from the AFL, people were expecting lot of him and that he’d drift seamlessly back in. He’s still only 23. In Kildare we probably rush players, it does take a bit of time for players to develop. It’s taken time for Paul to mature, but in this form he’s a big plus.
I thought Eoin Doyle was immense from the word go for Kildare. The first ball that came in, he’d no right to win it but did. He set the tone from word go, he’s a very aggressive type player. That aggression is something Kildare have lacked a little bit but he provided it.
Obviously Niall Kelly’s performance was top drawer in attack as well. Another young guy who’s still U21 this year, he has struggled with injuries but showed how good he can be on Saturday.
It’s been a tough few months for Kildare football. It’s so easy to get wrapped up in the negativity. You can understand some of the criticism, Jason (Ryan) would have known when you take an inter-county manager job, that’s just the way it goes.
Jason took an awful lot of stick but a lot of it was rubbish from people who didn’t understand the situation. Suggestions of getting in a new management team were crazy. When you’ve a team not playing with confidence, you just have to keep your head down and work your way out of it.
I was very happy for Jason on Saturday. He’s still only human and I assume some of that criticism filtered through to him. It was a good night for Jason and his management.
Kildare must come up with that sort of performance and intensity again against Kerry. They didn’t press Dublin high up the field in the Leinster semi-final whereas they put pressure on Cork all over the field on Saturday. That’s the type of work rate that’s needed at this level.
Kerry will be a much different proposition of course. The likes of Niall Kelly are going to have to play a different game the next day. That’s what the good teams are able to do, if you curtail a top forward, there’s someone else to step up.
If James O’Donoghue is tied up next Sunday, one of the Geaney’s will come in to lead for example. Kerry have so many strings in their bow. For Kildare the likes of Alan Smith, Padraig Fogarty and Cathal McNally are all honest players, who are well able to take a score.
There’ll be a lot of optimism about Kildare football this week but the most important thing is they bring that intensity and will to win.
For Cork, I’d say there’ll be a little bit of pressure for a change of management. It was a tough weekend for Cork GAA in general. Around the country when Brian Cuthbert was given the job, there probably was a few eyebrows raised. John Cleary’s name would have been floating around at the time.
To be fair to Brian, he has a lot of experienced Cork football men alongside him. It just hasn’t happened for them though and the players will have to take responsibility as well.
The other big winner this weekend was Fermanagh. Pete McGrath has been brilliant as manager. Football has evolved so much since he won All-Ireland titles with Down but he’s moved with it.
Sometimes that can be difficult to do and you always want to go back to what was successful for you, even as a player going back to what worked for yourself. It’s been a huge achievement for Pete to do the job he’s done.
It took a bit of character to get that result on Saturday as things were not going their way early on. Sean Quigley wasn’t motoring like we know he can but then Tomas Corrigan stepped up to score 1-7.
They’ve made major progress to reach their first quarter-final since 2004. Obviously there’s a massive mountain ahead of them in Dublin but they’ll have nothing to fear or lose.
