WITH TWO ROUNDS remaining in the league, Kildare are staring into the abyss. One more defeat will seal their fate and condemn them to Division 3 football for 2025.
Donegal and Armagh were always the frontrunners for promotion from the second tier, but Kildare were among the sides expected to retain their Division 2 status this year.
A win against an unbeaten Donegal side is their last chance to avoid that outcome.
Before the football league resumes this weekend, let’s review some of the factors that may have contributed to Kildare’s declining form.
1. Departing Players
Before the league even got underway, Glenn Ryan revealed that nine players from the class of 2023 were stepping away this year. Among them were Neil Flynn, David Hyland, Jack Robinson, Darragh Malone, and Paul Cribbin who are all significant absentees.
Hyland was veteran defender who started in all six of their championship games last year, while Neil Flynn scored nine points against Roscommon (0-4) and Monaghan(0-5).
Those departures follow the loss of Fergal Conway to retirement in 2022 while Tommy Moolick, Keith Cribbin and Peter Kelly all called time on their Lilywhite careers in 2020. It seems Kildare are still trying to adjust to a considerable loss of quality players.
2. Key Injuries
Along with those permanent losses in the squad, some marquee players have been struck down by injury throughout the 2024 league. Star forward Ben McCormack suffered a broken jaw in their loss to Meath which ruled him out of the subsequent tie against Cork. It seems likely to keep him sidelined for the rest of the league.
McCormack is an experienced member of the Kildare attack, who scored 10 points from play in last year’s championship. He was also singled out for praise in their encouraging Leinster semi-final against Dublin where they ran the provincial giants to just two points in Croke Park.
Meanwhile, Niall Kelly and Daniel Flynn missed early rounds of the league through injury. Flynn’s campaign did come to life last time out against Cork as he pocketed 1-1 from play. Darragh Kirwan was forced off in the first half against Meath, a game which Kildare only lost by three points. He also missed the Fermanagh game through injury.
3. Underage Stars Not Yet Emerging
Kildare have won two All-Ireland U20 titles in the last seven years, and also reached the 2022 decider. However, the senior team is yet to benefit from that success. Three of last year’s All-Ireland-winning contingent have been added to Glenn Ryan’s squad, with Ryan Burke, Shane Farrell and Callum Bolton all featuring throughout the league. Harry O’Neill, Luke Killian and Brendan Gibbons lined out in the 2022 final where they fell to a Darragh Canavan-inspired Tyrone.
It is perhaps too soon to expect those players to influence the direction of Kildare football at this level, but Jimmy Hyland, Aaron Masterson, Paddy Woodgate and Aaron O’Neill were All-Ireland U20 winners in 2018. O’Neill was the goalkeeper in that stage of his career but has since moved outfield for the Kildare seniors.
Underage success is not always easy to transfer into the senior stakes, yet Kildare still have time to harness the potential from those successful U20 teams.
4. County board tension & missing home comforts
The troubles in Kildare reached a low point after their Round 3 defeat to Armagh, when Glenn Ryan engaged in a heated exchange with local sports reporter Tommy Callaghan of the Leinster Leader.
Callaghan had written a piece quoting the Kildare chairman Mick Gorman as saying that he had told the Kildare management that “performances and results have to greatly improve” at a county board meeting. After the Armagh game, there was a tense back-and-forth between Ryan and Callaghan about the reporting of the remarks.
Writing in the Leinster Leader after that incident, Callaghan reiterated that Gorman had “instigated the discussion” about Kildare’s league form at the county board meeting, and that he had been “highly critical of results up to that point.”
Moreover, Kildare don’t have a home venue at the moment due to ongoing developments at St Conleth’s Park in Newbridge. Dr Cullen Park in Carlow has become their nominated home pitch as a result, meaning every game is an away game for Kildare in the league. It was a similar situation during last year’s championship. They defeated Wicklow in Navan in the Leinster championship before losing to Dublin in Kilkenny’s Nowlan Park and Monaghan in Tullamore during the All-Ireland series.
St Conleth’s Park was the setting of their ‘Newbridge or Nowhere’ triumph over Mayo in 2018, and it was there that they also earned a draw against Kerry and a three-point win over Dublin during the 2022 Division 1 league. They need to get back to the fortress.
5. Scoring issues/Poor run of results
Kildare have scored just three goals during the league so far. They’re tied with Limerick in that regard, with only Wicklow in a worse state as they have just one goal to their credit. Interestingly, all of Kildare’s goals arrived against Cork as Kevin Feely [penalty], Daniel Flynn and Alex Beirne all found the net.
But that splurge couldn’t offset their defensive frailties. Despite building up a five-point lead approaching half-time, they were outscored by 2-11 to 1-2 thereafter, thus condemning them to a fifth league loss on the bounce. They have a scoring difference of -28 so far, and that 14-point loss to Armagh is their largest margin of defeat.
And including last year’s league games, Kildare have gone 13 games without scoring a goal.
Since Ryan took over ahead of the 2022 season, Kildare have won just five league games and suffered 13 defeats. Similar to this year, they finished with just three goals in the 2023 league, all three coming in their Round 6 victory over Limerick.
Their championship form has been slightly better as they reached the Leinster final in 2022 and were in the All-Ireland series last year where they advanced to the preliminary quarter-finals from their group.
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