An Mhí v Cill Dara

[Donnellys Hollow]

Just watched the game in full again. Nice way to spend an hour!

Shorty - Unlucky with the penalty. Probably would have stopped it on a dry day. Varied the kickouts well.
Kelly - Looked to be carrying a knock alright but still stuck to Bray like sh1t to a blanket. Held him scoreless.
McGrillen - Struggled with O'Rourke early on but gradually got to grips with him. A few customary gallops up the field as usual.
Mac - I thought the penalty was harsh enough on him. Didn't give Ward a sniff. Some transformation from a two or three years ago.
M Flats - Won a load of breaks around the middle. Always seems to take the correct option in possession.
Bolton - Couldn't stop big Joe when switched on to him but had a stormer in the second half. Drove Kildare forward at every opportunity.
Flanagan - Struggled with Sheridan but he was nearly unmarkable in the first half. He'll have better days ahead.
Flynner - Had to step it up with Dermot going off and he did so. Bossed midfield and showed real leadership. Future captain?
Earley - There really is no justice in the world. They did it for you Dermot boy.
Jimmers - Class act. Calmness personified for the goal. Still think there's a lot more in him though.
Paudie - Some improvement on last week. Two points at important times and put the goal on a plate for Smithy.
E Flats - Up there with JD for motm. Like the brother, never seems to waste possession. Should be on the long range frees for the semi?
JD - You sir are a diamond. Dangerous Doyle is back! 
Smithy - Bagged his usual goal and won several frees. Like Jimmers, there's more to come from him.
Leper - Not as prominent as previous games but Kildare probably wouldn't be here if it wasn't for his performance in the drawn Antrim match.

Subs
Lynch - I thought Roli would replace Dermot but Hughie was excellent. Made a crucial interception and kicked some beautiful ball into the forwards.
Foley - Has waited a long time to get his chance and grabbed it with both hands. Put the shackles on Sheridan in the second half.
Roli - Threw himself around and was a general nuisance to the Meath defence. Won a few frees that we got scores from.
Chalky - Got through a lot of ball in his short spell on the field. Great option to have on the bench.
Lyons - Horsed into a few Meath forwards when he came on. Made a good burst up the Cusack sideline to ease some pressure on the defence.

[AZOffaly]

Just watched the game in full again. Nice way to spend an hour!

Shorty - Unlucky with the penalty. Probably would have stopped it on a dry day. Varied the kickouts well.
Kelly - Looked to be carrying a knock alright but still stuck to Bray like sh1t to a blanket. Held him scoreless.
McGrillen - Struggled with O'Rourke early on but gradually got to grips with him. A few customary gallops up the field as usual.
Mac - I thought the penalty was harsh enough on him. Didn't give Ward a sniff. Some transformation from a two or three years ago.
M Flats - Won a load of breaks around the middle. Always seems to take the correct option in possession.
Bolton - Couldn't stop big Joe when switched on to him but had a stormer in the second half. Drove Kildare forward at every opportunity.
Flanagan - Struggled with Sheridan but he was nearly unmarkable in the first half. He'll have better days ahead.
Flynner - Had to step it up with Dermot going off and he did so. Bossed midfield and showed real leadership. Future captain?
Earley - There really is no justice in the world. They did it for you Dermot boy.
Jimmers - Class act. Calmness personified for the goal. Still think there's a lot more in him though.
Paudie - Some improvement on last week. Two points at important times and put the goal on a plate for Smithy.
E Flats - Up there with JD for motm. Like the brother, never seems to waste possession. Should be on the long range frees for the semi?
JD - You sir are a diamond. Dangerous Doyle is back! 
Smithy - Bagged his usual goal and won several frees. Like Jimmers, there's more to come from him.
Leper - Not as prominent as previous games but Kildare probably wouldn't be here if it wasn't for his performance in the drawn Antrim match.

Subs
Lynch - I thought Roli would replace Dermot but Hughie was excellent. Made a crucial interception and kicked some beautiful ball into the forwards.
Foley - Has waited a long time to get his chance and grabbed it with both hands. Put the shackles on Sheridan in the second half.
Roli - Threw himself around and was a general nuisance to the Meath defence. Won a few frees that we got scores from.
Chalky - Got through a lot of ball in his short spell on the field. Great option to have on the bench.
Lyons - Horsed into a few Meath forwards when he came on. Made a good burst up the Cusack sideline to ease some pressure on the defence.

Can ye stop using the nicknames, ye are worse than Marty Morrisey. In fact Marty's probably reading this thread, and expect to hear Shorty kicking the ball out to Flynner, who feeds Jimmers..on to JD. Goal for the Thoroughbreds.

[INDIANA]

Good weekend for Leinster, and if the GAA hadn't rigged it so ye played Meath we'd probably have 3 in the semis.

I dont agree. We are so clueless when things start to go wrong (and they usually do at some stage) we would have lost to any of the other 6 quarter finalists.

I cannot help thinking back to the shambles of a process that lead to the hiring of o'Brien. They wouldnt consider an outsider ("over my dead body" said 1 prominent County Board guy Pat O'Neill of St Colmcilles!!). We now have a management that doesnt seem to be able to read a situation developing and deal with it. He can demonstrate progress , winning the Delaney Cup but I cannot see him developing a side to genuinely challenge for All-ireland honours and, lets face it, thats where its at in a small country like this and I am not sure if he has the nous to take on the big boys in tactics in big games.

You've a problem at midfield.And as Tyrone saw on Saturday you can't build a winning position without one midfeilder who can put his hands up and say kick it to me because I'm going to catch it. Kildare have a few lads capable of this as do Cork. Dublin have one and Down the same. You can't put a price on having a midfielder with catching ability. Meath had to bring Shane O Rourke out - that said everything.
You've no pace up front agorm. You can't play Ward and Sheridan together. In fact where the hell is Brian Sheridan. I think you've lost something since you took Bray out of the corner. David Bray was a bigger loss then you realise because he has pace. Hard to judge the backs because so much ball came in but Reilly hasn't been fit all year and you've looked shaky there all year.

[Jinxy]

Fair play to both teams yesterday. On a weekend of great football the best was last. Long range point scoring, great midfield play, super finishing James Kavanagh take a bow, and all with just 30 odd frees. Savage game.

For Kildare, the force is with ye now. Kick on. The 4 weeks layoff will be good for Earley, although if it is cruciate, he's not going to be fully right until an op I'd say. The good thing is ye do have options for the middle anyway even without him, and ye didn't even bring on big Willie.

The forwards are going very well now, and the movement off the full forward line is very good. One point there in the first half from O'Neill I think was exemplary. Ball in to Smith, out in front, lay off to O'Neill running in and pop over the bar. Well within the Hotzone as well Great stuff.

Good weekend for Leinster, and if the GAA hadn't rigged it so ye played Meath we'd probably have 3 in the semis.

I was wondering about this last night. Hard to gauge the quality of a game at the time (especially when you are lose!) and I haven't seen the Sunday game so I wasn't sure if it was a good game to watch.
i thought both teams did well in what were terrible conditions.
Mistakes were inevitable given that the ball was like a bar of soap.
Still, there wasn't a dirty stroke in the game and I think there was plenty of skill on display.
I wish Spillane would shut up with his 'putting the foot back into football' nonsense.
There was plenty of good quality foot-passing this weekend.

[Jinxy]

Good weekend for Leinster, and if the GAA hadn't rigged it so ye played Meath we'd probably have 3 in the semis.

I dont agree. We are so clueless when things start to go wrong (and they usually do at some stage) we would have lost to any of the other 6 quarter finalists.

I cannot help thinking back to the shambles of a process that lead to the hiring of o'Brien. They wouldnt consider an outsider ("over my dead body" said 1 prominent County Board guy Pat O'Neill of St Colmcilles!!). We now have a management that doesnt seem to be able to read a situation developing and deal with it. He can demonstrate progress , winning the Delaney Cup but I cannot see him developing a side to genuinely challenge for All-ireland honours and, lets face it, thats where its at in a small country like this and I am not sure if he has the nous to take on the big boys in tactics in big games.

You've a problem at midfield.And as Tyrone saw on Saturday you can't build a winning position without one midfeilder who can put his hands up and say kick it to me because I'm going to catch it. Kildare have a few lads capable of this as do Cork. Dublin have one and Down the same. You can't put a price on having a midfielder with catching ability. Meath had to bring Shane O Rourke out - that said everything.
You've no pace up front agorm. You can't play Ward and Sheridan together. In fact where the hell is Brian Sheridan. I think you've lost something since you took Bray out of the corner. David Bray was a bigger loss then you realise because he has pace. Hard to judge the backs because so much ball came in but Reilly hasn't been fit all year and you've looked shaky there all year.

Who?
I thought Crawford caught a few unless my memory is playing tricks on me.

[Dinny Breen]

There was plenty of good quality foot-passing this weekend.

Not to mention Doyle, O'Neill, Kavanagh, Reilly and O'Rourke all took scores with both feet, in fact Kavanaghs goal which was a sublime finish was with his left..

[AZOffaly]

Good point Dinny. The skill level all weekend was quiet high in fairness. Down kicked some beautiful points, as did Gooch. Dublin and Tyrone had some great scores, and there were great scores in the Rossies/Cork game as well, including gems from Shine and O'Gara. This was a good weekend, no doubt.

[All of a Sludden]

Well done Kildare, lot of happy Louth men last night. 

[Bord na Mona man]

We still haven't addressed the problems we've had for the last 5 years. We are a first-half team when we used to be one of the best second-half teams around. How many times have we come out after the break and it just seems that every single player drops his work-rate 10%? Is it a fitness thing? I never got any sense even when we narrowed the gap to two points that we could actually win.

I think Meath are too predictable in how they attack.
They rely too much on the 50-50 delivery and each player is expected to be self sufficient winning his own ball. A good opposition can make the switches and counter the particular danger man who is making most hay.
There is a whiff of the old style forward play about it - 6 squares and each forward staying in his square.

Once they aren't winning these balls, they don't have any great alternative. The forwards aren't used to to playing off each other, showing for the ball, making runs, decoys and using the angles. So the short game won't work.

They'll beat all bar the top counties with their traditional style of play, but once they meet a well organised defence, the scoring rate drops off a cliff. This is similar to what to Kerry against Tyrone in 2008. Once the gimmick of lashing everything into the clouds at Donaghy and Walsh stopped working, they had lost the knack of their traditional forward unit play.

Kildare's attacking gameplan is more about using the full width of the pitch, forwards dragging defenders out of position and creating space for support players. They'll be harder to stop.

[demusicman]

Congrats Kildare on your victory.
You may have not won The Leinster Championship but you are easily the best team in a Province where the standard is very weak.

[Louth Exile]

My own opinion was  (and is) regarding the Louth situation was that Meath should have offered a replay not becauise Louth deserved one but because meath needed a proper win with players getting the confidence and team spirit from the extra game if they had won it well. It shouldnt have been down to the players of course but when that situation did arise I think that the players and management should have been big enough to say "bring it on". I am not saying that we would be sitting pretty in an All-Ireland semi but I would suspect that we would not have experienced such an abject 2nd half performance again had we done so.

Get a grip! This theory that Meath would have beaten Louth second day out was proven to be groundless yesterday. Everything went right in the Meath v Dublin game and there was some wonderful goals, but it only masked some of the deficiencies in the attack which were shown up both in the Leinster final and from the 15th minute on yesterday. Even in their only defeat of the year Kildare still racked up 1-16 and as Mc Geeney pointed out after yesterdays match they learned a lot in defeat that day (particularly at fullback I would suggest, Kildare lads are open to correct me). Kildare have shown themselves to be a top class side, we were lucky to catch them cold and produced possibly the best display I have seen from a Louth team to beat them. Meath are on all evidence of this years championship only the fourth best team in Leinster at present!

I was a student living in Dublin in 98 and spent most Sundays in Croker, as a result I saw every Kildare game bar the AI final and was really rooting for them all the way. Would love to see Dublin make the final, but more importantly would love to see Kildare get an AI win!

Mc Geeney will have a full time job keeping the players feet on the ground, I was getting texts yesterday from Kildare men who hadn't been to football match in nine years! Hitch up the bandwagon lads and let them on

[AZOffaly]

Congrats Kildare on your victory.
You may have not won The Leinster Championship but you are easily the best team in a Province where the standard is very weak.

Why do you say this? Granted the likes of Laois, Offaly, Westmeath, Longford, Wicklow, Wexford and Carlow are all poor enough at the moment, but Longford beat Mayo, and gave Down a run for it in Newry, Offaly could have caught Down in Tullamore, Wicklow beat several Ulster teams last year, Kildare have beaten 3 this year, Dublin have just beaten Tyrone, Meath and Louth have had decent years.

I know it's popular to say how poor Leinster is, but really all Leinster is missing is a top, top team and that was Kerry and Tyrone for years. I think Leinster is quite competitive as a province, and this year we will hopefully have 1 if not 2 All IReland finalists.

[agorm]

My own opinion was  (and is) regarding the Louth situation was that Meath should have offered a replay not becauise Louth deserved one but because meath needed a proper win with players getting the confidence and team spirit from the extra game if they had won it well. It shouldnt have been down to the players of course but when that situation did arise I think that the players and management should have been big enough to say "bring it on". I am not saying that we would be sitting pretty in an All-Ireland semi but I would suspect that we would not have experienced such an abject 2nd half performance again had we done so.

Get a grip! This theory that Meath would have beaten Louth second day out was proven to be groundless yesterday. Everything went right in the Meath v Dublin game and there was some wonderful goals, but it only masked some of the deficiencies in the attack which were shown up both in the Leinster final and from the 15th minute on yesterday. Even in their only defeat of the year Kildare still racked up 1-16 and as Mc Geeney pointed out after yesterdays match they learned a lot in defeat that day (particularly at fullback I would suggest, Kildare lads are open to correct me). Kildare have shown themselves to be a top class side, we were lucky to catch them cold and produced possibly the best display I have seen from a Louth team to beat them. Meath are on all evidence of this years championship only the fourth best team in Leinster at present!

I was a student living in Dublin in 98 and spent most Sundays in Croker, as a result I saw every Kildare game bar the AI final and was really rooting for them all the way. Would love to see Dublin make the final, but more importantly would love to see Kildare get an AI win!

Mc Geeney will have a full time job keeping the players feet on the ground, I was getting texts yesterday from Kildare men who hadn't been to football match in nine years! Hitch up the bandwagon lads and let them on

Louth Exile read my post again, I wrote that the game would have been of benefit to Meath IF THEY HAD WON IT WELL! Talk about sensitivity! I wanted Meath to give a replay as I thought it would be better to win well and the corrolary to that was (of course) that I was prepared to accept losing to them if Louth turned out to be the better team.

I never automatically assumed that Meath would have won the replay.

[demusicman]

Congrats Kildare on your victory.
You may have not won The Leinster Championship but you are easily the best team in a Province where the standard is very weak.

Why do you say this? Granted the likes of Laois, Offaly, Westmeath, Longford, Wicklow, Wexford and Carlow are all poor enough at the moment, but Longford beat Mayo, and gave Down a run for it in Newry, Offaly could have caught Down in Tullamore, Wicklow beat several Ulster teams last year, Kildare have beaten 3 this year, Dublin have just beaten Tyrone, Meath and Louth have had decent years.

I know it's popular to say how poor Leinster is, but really all Leinster is missing is a top, top team and that was Kerry and Tyrone for years. I think Leinster is quite competitive as a province, and this year we will hopefully have 1 if not 2 All IReland finalists.

I agree with you when you say Leinster is competitve but for what reasons? IMHO the back door system is creating a false picture for some counties. They may not be as strong as what they think they are.
In my own county Meath we got to the all ireland semi final last year [with no disrespect to other counties ]by beating weak teams on the way. This year was no different beating Offaly, Laois, Dublin [a very false scoreline victory] and Louth.
Ulster and Connaught are just as weak.

[AZOffaly]

So basically Ulster, Connacht and Leinster are all weak. And The Munster Champions were just beaten by a team that Offaly lost to by 2 points, so basically Munster is weak as well.

Just so's I know like