An Lu v Cill Dara LSFC 5th June 2010

[Hound]

If he was pretty honest he would have said that Kildare are (after the Dub's) the most over rated, over hyped team in Leinster.  They created a new logo there one year and there was more talk about it than a Wall Street crash.

And some people wonder why the Laoismen are called the Lemons ..... 

[INDIANA]

The only thing that I would say about the final, is that this is a great opportunity to make our first in 50 years, but we've blown these opportunities before. We need to make the Kildare result count for something! I think that the bookies will make us the slightest of favourites for the game, not that it means anything. Glad its back in Navan and if we can reproduce close to that performance we should get through.

Louth v Westmeath is now fixed for Croke Park on Sunday June 27 with a 5.50pm throw-in to allow for live TV coverage.
It will be preceeded by the other Leinster semi at 4pm.

5.50pm on a Sunday? I mean thats just ridiculous. Surely that game whould be at 2pm with the other game on at 4pm?

It was fixed for 4pm in Navan and they moved it, horrendous time! If Louth juniors reproduce the result over the Lillies in the Junior semi final tonight then the Louth juniors will play at 2pm and the seniors at 5.50!! Family friendly it would not be.

IF Louth make it through tonight the sensible move would be the junior match at 12pm, followed by Lu V Iarmhi and then the Big One (well it could be Dublin v Meath after all). Of course as already alluded to, we have sold our souls to the TV corporations, because thats more important than the family day out!

I think its madness. Whatever team loses the othre semi will be gone - a few of the winners fans might hang around but they'll be gone by HT. So you'll have about 15-20k absolute max there. Play it at 2pm- by 20mins into it you'll have 40k at it. By HT about 60k. crazy.

[Donnellys Hollow]

Sums up a lot of the fustrations fairly well.


Never mind the agony, hope is what makes this so painful
Last Updated Jun 2010
By: TCM Editorial
WE HAVE spent decades supporting Kildare, and it is not the agony that kills us – it's the hope.

If only it wasn't for the heartbreaking hope. There we were all winter, like the unlucky-in-love middle-aged woman who's been on a few half-decent dates and is already planning her wedding day.

But it's bogus dawns every morning, bad days at the office each and every day, trapdoors and banana skins all the short summer long.

Take out 1998 and 2000 and it is a never-ending cycle of shaky optimism thrown on flimsy foundations and gales all around.

Younger fans scorn the pessimism. They believe our past is not their future. Ah but son, I cannot escape the feeling that you're wrong because I was you once and I know how this flick ends.

It's not a Hollywood romantic comedy – it's a Shakespearean tragedy. Come here, I'll save you the hardship. In the end, the good guy dies and the bad guys keep the Delaney Cup and the Sam Maguire.

You're an inquisitive type, young man, so you'll be looking for the root reasons and the causes that lie beneath. You'll want to get all CSI Newbridge on the case of the gallant white corpse and the victorious mediocre county.

Some years you'll look at the referee, some years you'll look at the team selection, some years you'll look at the injuries, and in the years you're really tearing your mop out you'll want a deeper explanation and you'll speak of structures and root-and-branch reviews.

Some years you'll turn nasty and dark and conclude we're just no f***ing good and we were never going to amount to anything anyway.

This condition of seeking answers to soothe your seething heart will not, in my experience, change. So this year, I'll have a team selection please Bob. Hmmm. Our goalkeeper is not bad but his kick outs are nothing to write abroad about.

Our full-back line? When things were going well last year it was weak. When things go bad out the field we are predictably left with a full-scale horror show, where a team that could only kick 1-11 against Longford – one of the poorer inter-county sides known to man – can rack up 1-22 without doing anything special.

A lot of people around the country watching on television will have watched Gary White get severely roasted by Shane Lennon and will have concluded that Gary White isn't much of a footballer.

That pains the mind because we know that he could be a serious footballer but that the process of him realising that potential can only begin when he is released to his natural habitat of centre halfback.

Speaking of the pivot position, we would point out that even when Brian Flanagan is at the peak of his powers there are question marks over his distribution. When he is at the depth of his powers, it leaves us wondering how White or Michael Foley cannot be better options at six.

Emmet Bolton is an honest inter-county footballer but has never convinced at corner-back. Hugh McGrillen can't be exempt from criticism either. When he is left playing from behind, he looks very poor. Keith Cribbin cannot learn a new position when he is behind a creaking centrefield. And even the usually exempt Morgan O'Flaherty was often chasing fast-lengthening shadows.

A midfield that couldn't dominate St Kevin's was always unlikely to dominate Louth, although in David Whyte's defence, he did supply consistent honesty of effort and at least looked up for the game.

Solutions are not so easy, except to say that the best corner-back on the panel, Eamonn Callaghan, is left as a yo-yo forward. Foley, meanwhile, must be close to going the same way as Kevin O'Neill if he is behind Damien Hendy in the pecking order.

Kieran McGeeney probably doesn't want any advice from us, but if he did, we would suggest that he stop over-thinking such issues – because that is surely what is happening when he decides to withdraw our top-scoring forward and later admits that it was a mistake.

A bad day at the office? Sport throws up aberrations. Manchester United won the league in a season that contained a 5-0 loss to Newcastle and a 6-3 loss to Southampton.

But we must realise that the aberration with this Kildare team is not when they are destroyed; the aberration is when they produce the goods.

And yet, out of that rat's nest of conundrums, there is still our old conniving friend, hope. Starved of possession, and even with Alan Smith not looking sharp, Ronan Sweeney off form and Callaghan drifting, our attack was excellent as it racked up 1-16. Johnny Doyle played well; James Kavanagh was magnificent.

He showed the necessary aggression to win ball when it was far from easy to do so and the necessary coolness to pick out the right option, as with his sublime pass for O'Neill's goal.

Maybe, just maybe, if Kildare could remedy their problems in defence and midfield, that attack could cause problems for even the best teams in the country.

That thought has given me hope. If it has done the same for you, then apologies in advance.

http://www.kildare-nationalist.ie/tabId/206/itemId/2117/Never-mind-the-agony-hope-is-what-makes-this-so-p.aspx

[Dinny Breen]

In fairness on the button.

Anyway the players had a clear the air meet, reports are it didn't clear a whole lot, a lot of angry players out there, going to be a short summer...

[The Real Laoislad]

If he was pretty honest he would have said that Kildare are (after the Dub's) the most over rated, over hyped team in Leinster.  They created a new logo there one year and there was more talk about it than a Wall Street crash.

And some people wonder why the Laoismen are called the Lemons ..... 

Because we're thick skinned?