KILDARE SELECTOR RONAN Sweeney says that the onus on the footballers to perform against Mayo was about more than just the controversy over hosting the game in Newbridge.
Cian O’Neill’s side recorded an incredible victory over the 2017 All-Ireland finalists following a week in which they fought a public battle with the GAA to earn their right to host the All-Ireland SFC qualifier.
Defeating Mayo after such a thrilling encounter was a fitting way to end the saga, but Sweeney says that the victory served another purpose for the players, who lost to Carlow in the Leinster SFC championship before snapping 12-game losing streak against Derry in the qualifiers.
It has also helped them to reconnect with the Kildare supporters.
“There was an onus on us to perform anyway because we’re hurting a lot from the way we performed against Carlow,” he told The42 after the win in Newbridge on Saturday.
“But it just added that extra bit to it and it just got everybody on our side because strangely enough if that didn’t happen, if that whole controversy wasn’t there this week, the Kildare supporters would probably have been a little indifferent towards us because they didn’t really trust us before today.
“But they really got behind us after the stand we took. Like I said, these days, the last time I remember anything like this was against Donegal back in 2001 [in the qualifiers] and we all still talk about that day. So for them to experience that as players is one of those things they’ll never forget.”
He continued:
“Over the moon for the players because they’ve gone through so much over the last couple of years, over the last number of years and just this year alone in the last couple of months and weeks.
“They’ve got a lot of stick here, deservedly so, we just didn’t turn up in the first round against Carlow.
“To come through the process then and get to this stage now where we pull off this victory in front of our home fans, it’s what dreams are made of really. Because we haven’t got the opportunity to do this, to play in Newbridge too often, given the circumstances or whatever. But thankfully we got that opportunity because it meant a lot.”
The players did not allow the stand-off with the GAA to distract them from their preparations for the tie according to Sweeney, and the former inter-county player notes that training was ‘a good diversion’ from all of the external noise.
“It was actually an enjoyable week because like I said we haven’t had this sort of support in Kildare for years being honest. For them to all just come out before the match this week given the circumstances, it was a breath of fresh air to be honest.
“It wasn’t playing the game in Newbridge. It’s not like we have a great success rate here. We’re not invincible in Newbridge, far from it. We lost four home games this year alone in the League.
It was just the manner in which everything happened and just having our home support really behind us. Throughout the League maybe, if we made a mistake in a game the support would go silent and stay silent.”
Kildare won’t have long to savour this achievement as they turn their attention to Fermanagh in the next round of the qualifiers this weekend, where victory would secure them a safe passage into the Super 8s.
Sweeney insists that Cian O’Neill’s charges will settle down to concentrate on that tie in Pairc Tailteann on Saturday evening, but they’re going to take a moment to absorb what they have accomplished first.
“At some stage but I’ll tell you what, we’ll enjoy this. All these people on the pitch, it doesn’t happen too often.
“The players work so hard and put so much effort into inter-county football these days, so days like today – just looking at Eamonn Callaghan there with his kid and his family, they’ve been supporting him for about 15 years and they don’t get (many) days like this.
“So we’ll enjoy this for the rest of the day, the evening and the night and we’ll get back at it. We’ve always talked about getting to the Super 8s after the Carlow game.
“We’ve one more game and if we can do that, we’ll take it from there. Whoever we’re playing is gonna have a big rest and they’re gonna be coming out fighting. It’s gonna be huge.”
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