Leinster Minor 2013

[Croí na hÉireann]

Kildare 2-15 Westmeath 2-7

A great win for Kildare. I thought Kildare played within themselves in the first half but they put the game to bed in great style after the break with the two goals from the Two Mile House lads. Some of Fitzpatrick's points in the first half were sublime and Paul Mescal put in a great hour at centre back.

It's mad to think that these lads weren't even born the last time Kildare won a Leinster Minor Championship.

There was 5 Towers lads on the minor panel that won the last time, same as this time. 

Kildare played better against Dublin but always going to be hard to raise the bar after that performance and Cian McMonagle was very quiet today. The platform though was laid by midfield and Connell and in particular Luke Flynn were outstanding.

Thought it was madness from Westmeath to persist with the blanket defence as Mescal was just sweeping up everything and from early on I thought it was obvious it wasn't going to work. When the shackles came towards the end they actually caused Kildare some problems.

Lacey has added something to the Brian Murphy set-up.

Junior, u21 and minor Leinster champions. How bad!!!!

Madness is right Dinny, very frustrating to watch from a Westmeath perspective. Aidan Lennon spent the game running on and off the field and I've no idea what messages he was carrying as nothing changed on the field of play. We were over run in the middle third and fatally kept kicking the ball out there where Kildare won the vast majority of our kickouts, meaning we were under constant pressure. Kildare's poor kicking kept us in the game in the first half but the dam burst in the second when the goals went in. A pity we didn't put up a better challenge, galling as well that this group of players had Kildare's number at u14 and u16.

Very impressed with Connell and Fitzpatrick, some fine conditioning gone into that team, they will go far. You wouldn't know we had two years under our strength and conditioning "expert". The silver lining is that Tommy Carr has probably done himself out of the senior job if and when it becomes available.