U21 Football Championship

[Tatler Jack]

Young got MOTM should have been Cunniffe.  Mayo left it behind them - agree Parsons should have taken his point

[BauldBull]

Is Cunniffe the Mayo no 6, if so I agree he was good.
Anyhoo hard luck Mayo

[highorlow]

Best team wan. It was a 3 point win despite the scoreboard... which is a fair reflection.

Same old story with Mayo.

1- too slow to wake up and realise the match has started.
2 - poor full back line
3 - too much individual showboating
4 - finding it too difficult to get scores, Kerry got the last few points off minimal posession. With mayo it was like trying to run a car on apple juice.

Depressing to loose to the Kingdom again.

[Jinxy]

I thought Kerry deserved it in the end. Was Tommy Walsh supposed to be playing midfield? The majority of the clean catching was being done by the smaller Mayo men. Don't think he is the O'Sé replacement some people think he is. I like the look of Moran though.

[johnpower]

Just about made it .Kerry were well beaten in Mid field in the second half .Good free taking .Just about scraping through each match .Where was the defending for the Mayo goal ?

[Maguire01]

Intense first half for An Dún v Cill Dara.

Down deserve to be further ahead, but a very well taken goal by Kildare.  Lots of very basic mistakes from both teams however with lots of unnecessary frees being given away.

[Jinxy]

Kildare well on top now but doing their best to kick it away.

[bcarrier]

Gary Whyte a deserving MoM.

Hard to see that this bunch of Down lads will end the senior famine. A number appear to have regresssed since minor level.

[Jinxy]

A fully deserved win for Kildare. Big, strong team with a few handy forwards. They need to calm down though as they kicked away some amount of possession in the 2nd half which kept Down in the game. On an unsavoury note, this craic of dropping a knee into a mans head/neck area when he is on the ground is despicable. After the Kildare centre back caught an unbelievable ball with a minute to go just outside his own square and landed heavily, the no. 5 for Down came straight in with the knee. Completely unnecessary.

[Maguire01]

I'd echo Jinxy - Kildare definitely deserving winners with their second half display.  That dirty move by Down's #5 was a disgrace and should be punished - there's no place for that carry-on.

[moysider]

Best team wan. It was a 3 point win despite the scoreboard... which is a fair reflection.

Same old story with Mayo.

1- too slow to wake up and realise the match has started.
2 - poor full back line
3 - too much individual showboating
4 - finding it too difficult to get scores, Kerry got the last few points off minimal posession. With mayo it was like trying to run a car on apple juice.

Depressing to loose to the Kingdom again.

Thought Cafferkey did well at full back apart from the goal. With Kevin McLoughlin in the fb line in second half they looked secure enough. Barrett not as effective as usual but he was doubtful with injury. Cunniffe and Burke were very good.
Parsons O Shea and the 2 Sweeneys can also be pleased with their game. The important thing is that several of these lads have what it takes to be senior men even though most are backs and midfield. The loss of Hanley hurt us today bigtime.

Answers have to be asked of management  re Campbell. Word is he was fit but dropped for disciplinary reasons. Without him our forwards were clueless in the first half. If he was dropped why change their mind after 20 mins?  Diid they think could do it without him? They should have started him or stuck to their guns on the decision to drop him.

Also how did it take Management 2 1/2 championship matches and God knows how many challenges to realise what everybody who attends matches in the county knows and that is that Kevin McLoughlin was the best corner back available to them?  This in a county that is supposed to be crying out for corner backs that can play there. They got away with some dodgy selections last few years  but its a bit of a joke really. Not sure they deserve this fine group of players.

[Rossfan]

Mayo like Ros in the Connacht Final only played in the second half. When they ran at the Kerry defence they had them in trouble but you have to compete for 60 minutes.
Kildare certainly upset the apple cart in Navan. However they made heavy enough weather of it.
Hopefully they can take the crown but Kerry in a Final and all that....
Still Dinny remember our minors in 2006.
I see the Ref didnt improve since the Connacht Final  (rushing to Carrick to see the 08 version now)
He booked the Kildare Goalie but did nothing about the Down no 5 !!

[downredblack]

Fair play to Kidare , deserved their win no doubt . Physically bigger and stronger than Down and this showed in the second half . Should give the Kerry boys a right good game . Hope they go on and win it now .
Needless to say sick as a parrot   

[Dinny Breen]

Happy days, first All-Ireland in 10 years to look forward to..

Delighted for young Mark Waters, he's a smashing fella and had a great game today. Chalkie White was superb, best centre-half back I have seen at this grade since Byran Cullen. Wouldn't be Kildare if we didn't try our best to lose the game and up to the last 10 minutes I thought our full forward line was excellent.

Great fillip for the County to be in All-Ireland, bring on the Kingdom, just glad it's not Galway, assuming the final will be in Thurles...

I'd go for Kildare v Kerry and memories of 98 to flood back for Glenn Ryan!

Great prediction from LaoisGAA, would you like to forecast the winner...



PS I hate Navan.... 

[Dinny Breen]

LITTLE more than a minute has elapsed in the Leinster final when Gary White wins possession and bursts forward.

One of Kildare's chief scoring threats, Wexford's Seán O'Neill, senses an opportunity to lay down a marker on the Lilywhite captain, who whether he knew it or not, had been struggling with a shoulder injury in the build-up to the game.

O'Neill eyes up his man and times his tackle perfectly. Bang! He hits White with everything he's got.

It's a shuddering, bone-crunching challenge, one of those that you can feel in the stand. It's no surprise when the man hits the dirt, broken, dry-retching, gulping desperately for air.

It is the Wexford man who is in need of first, second and third aid though. He doubles over on his hands and knees but the guttural roar of the Kildare support acclaiming a hero will have told him that he has had about as much an impact on 2nd Lieutenant Gary White as Derby have had on the English Premiership.

****

IT'S mid-way through the second half and Wexford midfielder David Farrell has possession close to the stand sideline. White confronts him in the all-or-nothing style that epitomises everything he has ever done. The challenge is a little high and earns him a yellow card.

Although Farrell hops off the turf immediately, those who have been waiting for the chance to shake their heads knowingly do so with relish, pleased to believe that they have had their point proven once again.

"Good player but has a nasty streak" is the assertion.

When did it start? We're not sure but there had never been any talk of this supposed mean streak as a minor.

And then he had his nose broken in an off-the-ball incident during a league game in Geraldine Park between his club Sarsfields and Athy.

Although he spent a night in hospital, the vibe doing the rounds on sidelines and forums was that Gary White had it coming.

Just imagine what that was like. His mother Helen was very shook up by it. Dad Seán - the original Chalky - was raging. Gary himself was surprised and hurt.

He shouldn't have been of course. Apart from being a victim of the most Irish of traits - the obsession with chopping people down to size - he is a Sarsfields man and proud of it.

The self-assurance that comes with the type of concerted success Sarsfields have had over the years doesn't go down well with others. It is thus with any club sitting atop a roll of honour in any county.

So while young Chalky has always been a Great, ah, White Hope for Kildare football, his roots have made it just that little easier for the critics to stick the knife in, because Sarsfields are one arrogant shower.

"It's hard to block it out," he says of the jibes. "Of course I'm aware that I pick up too many yellow cards and I am trying to improve that. I suppose I am eager to win and I get a bit hot-headed but I really do want to win.

"Glenn Ryan had a long career with Kildare. He was a very intimidating man. The likes of Brian Lacey was the same. They had a small bit of aggression in them."

Another factor to consider is that he played his first game as a defender in the 2005 county final replay against St Laurence's. In other words, he is a defender just over two years.

There have been late challenges, and some incidents he regrets, but he reckons his reputation is "a bit overplayed". What's more, he's convinced that he is improving, having learned a lot about how to tackle from senior boss Kieran McGeeney this year. Because before that, he didn't know how to. Tackling doesn't figure prominently in the manual of a forward, or even an attack-minded midfielder.

Significantly, neither Ryan, who is now his U21 manager, nor McGeeney have made any suggestions that the 6'2" 13 stone tyro should tone things down. On the contrary, they have commended his aggression; he just needs to be a bit cuter about his deployment of it.

And that's the point here. Gary White is just 21. Roy Keane didn't learn to calm down until he was about 29 and that volcano never truly burned out. In the end, he did alright for himself.

Closer to home, no-one will ever forget Ryan bullying Westmeath players and the referee into submission in the 2004 Leinster championship. That was hunger and desire at its most primal. Some people said the Round Towers legend was right on the edge that day. In truth he careered right over the precipice and it was the reason a 14-man Kildare won.

White possesses a similar determination that has been evident from the first time he laced a pair of boots and trotted down to Sarsfields. He has done everything he can to maximise his potential, apart perhaps from giving up his beloved fast food. Maybe Ryan and McGeeney see a younger version of themselves when they look at him.

For just like them, within White's soul is a fire that will not be quenched.

****

WANT to know where that fire comes from? What makes him push himself to the limit and beyond? Just walk into his kitchen most days and you'll find the answer in the form of his grandfather.

Paddy 'Boiler' White was named at centre-forward on Kildare's Team of the Millennium and won a Leinster title with the All-Whites back in 1956.

All the stories Gary heard when growing up though recounted Boiler's heroic deeds in a Sarsfields jersey, especially from 1950-1952, when the Sash chiselled out a famous county championship three-in-a-row. These are his motivation.

"My granddad is the main thing. There's been a lot of talk since I was small, with people saying if I was half as good as he was I'd be okay and I did want to live up to that name."

There is a long way to go but right now, Boiler is a very proud man.

Next Saturday, Kildare play a star-studded Down in the Cadbury's All-Ireland U21 football semi-final.

White has had a lot to contend with this season, having also established himself as a regular with the seniors while attending DIT, where he is studying logistics and supply chain management. As well as that he is an officer of the Irish Army.

He has taken it all in his stride and is revelling in the captaincy of the U21s, having walked off with three man-of-the-match awards out of the four Leinster games. He is quick to point to the contributions of his team-mates though, while his admiration for the head honcho is very evident.

"Glenn has been through it all. I knew he was going to be a good manager. Everybody was wondering if he would introduce a Micko-style training, running us into the ground, but he's very modern. He brought in Jim (Maguire) who is excellent.

"The first few trials and training sessions, everyone was eager to impress because of Glenn, who he is, and his standing in the county."

White reveals Ryan's emphasis on creating a family atmosphere in the dressing room. A weekend away in Meath enabled players to get to know one another, as well as the management. A Christmas party in Kavanagh's of Naas that ended in Time nightclub was also important.

"He's serious when it comes to football but he doesn't want fellas going around with serious faces all the time. There's even a bit of craic before games. He wants us to be relaxed and reckons we play our best when we're relaxed."

They will need to be at their best to account for Down, who won the minor All-Ireland three years ago and look to have trained on, despite losing the services of the supremely gifted Martin Clarke to the AFL. But Kildare have not reached the summit of their ambitions yet.

"At the start we were kinda' like, 'it would be nice to win a Leinster'. But Glenn kept harping on about having an All-Ireland medal. We were happy to win Leinster but it was back to work pretty quickly as this has been the main goal all year.

"Kildare have won a few Leinsters now so we want to separate ourselves from the group and we also want to help push Kildare onto the next level. Everyone is fully confident now of winning an All-Ireland."

As ever The Driven Man will be leading the way. There will be collisions and his team-mates will love it, taking their cue from the on-field leader.

2nd Lieutenant Gary White won't shy away from his responsibilities and nor will he back down from any challenge.

And if you don't like that, go follow tiddlywinks.