The 16th Man

Kildare and Meath’s clash at headquarters yesterday was a game set to the rhythm of upbeat music and Kildare danced their way stylishly over the finish line. Kildare have become notoriously slow starters throughout the qualifiers and yesterday was no different, finding themselves 1-3 to no score down after fifteen minutes of high octane Royal play. There is no better man to have in the trenches than Dermot Earley and his loss through injury after only a minute of play was certainly a cause for concern amongst the Lilywhite faithful. Meath were playing high intensity showing no ill effects from the backlash of their Leinster Final victory. Joe Sheridan was a towering brute amongst the Kildare defence, a tormentor whose scores and general play contributed greatly to Meath’s first half lead. However, pressure makes diamonds and when leaders were needed up stepped man of the match, Johnny Doyle, who pointed a gifted effort from the sideline to kick-start the Kildare revival and eventual overthrow the Leinster champions. Genius at its best must be recognised and Doyle deserves all the plaudits he gets. He simply refuses to bow. His courage and mental strength is titan like. After he misguided a 21 yard free wide memories of last weekend’s six first half wides against Monaghan began to become embroidered in the mind but the scorer in chief plugged away and finished with an impressive 8 points, five of which came from play. While Meath started the better, Kildare’s vital scores were to come at crucial times. Their goals were pleasing on the eye for the old breed, where direct football flourished, both Kavanagh and Smith polishing off fine long balls to the back of the net leaving the half time score Meath 1-9 Kildare 2-5.

In the second half Meath simply vanished with Kildare’s forceful runs dissecting the Meath defence time and time again with Kavanagh, O’Neill and O’Flaherty all pointing phenomenal efforts and playing prominent roles. Kildare’s defence was excellent too. Not since God said to Abraham ‘kill me a son’ has discipline been enforced as much. Led by Emmet Bolton they were in inscrutable form, turning over possession constantly and refusing to breach the rules of the game, to the extent that Meath withdrew their key free taker Cian Ward mid way through the second half with the game clearly needing to be won on imagination and not routine. If Kildare’s forwards were finding confidence contagious then Meath’s forwards were learning that so was lack of confidence, only scoring a poor return of three second half points. Meath eventually rallied reducing the difference to three (2-12 to 1-12) but again the relentless Doyle fulfilled his duty as captain, spearheading further onslaughts between the Meath posts to ensure that Kildare would advance to play Down in the All-Ireland semi final.

It was an engrossing Kildare performance with few blemishes. McGeeney’s side showed true grit and resilience after the early loss of talisman Dermot Earley and yet again their forwards ran up a big score. Meath couldn’t match the heights they reached in the first half, perhaps deflated by Smith’s sucker punch goal before the half time whistle sounded and their challenge evaporated into thin air when Kildare’s momentum from the past six weeks began to strangle and punish every mistake they made.

Full time score: Kildare 2-17 Meath 1-12.

Kildare: S McCormack, B Flanagan, H McGrillen, A Mclochlainn, E Bolton (0-1), P Kelly, E Callaghan, D Flynn, D Earley, M O’Flaherty, P O’Neill (0-2), E O’Flaherty (0-5 {3f}), J Kavanagh (1-1 {1f}), A Smith (1-0), J Doyle (0-8 {3f}. Subs: H Lynch for Earley (1), M Foley for Flanagan (37), R Sweeney for Callaghan (46), G White for Bolton (57), D Lyons for Kelly (62).

Meath: B Murphy, C O’Connor (0-1), K Reilly, E Harrington, A Moyles, G O’Brien, C King, N Crawford, B Meade (0-1), S Kenny, S Bray, G Reilly (0-2), C Ward (1-2 {2f}), S O’Rourke (0-2), J Sheridan (0-3). Subs: C McGuinness for Moyles (50), J Queeney (0-1 {1f}) for Ward (51).

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