Lessons to be learned for both sides

AT THE relatively early stage of his second year in senior intercounty management Kieran McGeeney has had his ups and downs.

Relegation and championship embarrassment a year ago was followed by a redeeming run in the qualifiers, whereas good displays in this season’s league yielded only an agonising failure to achieve promotion.

Yesterday, however, Kildare came good for the former Armagh captain. Afterwards, McGeeney was speaking the lingua franca of the satisfied manager – that is the language of dissatisfaction.

“We still have a pile of work to do. We missed a lot of scores in the second half. I’d be a hard enough task master, but I felt we did a few silly things when we were on top. When you get on top you have to be able to put teams away. We had a few chances to maybe put away a few goals in the first half, but didn’t take them.

“It’s a lesson that has to sink in because on other days you would be punished for not taking your chances.”

Asked had he been worried by Offaly’s goal seven minutes from the end, he expressed exasperation rather than concern.

“I was pissed off when we conceded the goal. I was trying to get fresh legs on, but at the same time you don’t want to upset the balance, but sometimes the players who are doing best are the ones who are most tired.

“It was down to six points, but I felt like we were in control, but with McNamee and the likes out there you’d be cautious.”

Kildare’s display was underwritten by a fine turn from Dermot Earley at centrefield and McGeeney was quick to point out that the player’s substitution with 10 minutes left had been enforced rather than complacent.

“He picked up a calf injury and that muscle, if you try and play on when you’re fatigued, can tear so we decided to take him off. We’ll know more about it on Tuesday night, because it’s hard to tell immediately afterwards.”

McGeeney’s counterpart Tom Cribbin had been forced to revise his selection policy to counter Earley, sending in Ciarán McManus after 16 minutes.

“Ciarán is a good experienced player,” said Cribbin. “He is working in England. He gets home every Friday night late or Saturday morning. It is difficult to try and prepare a team with something like that, but we need his experience. We felt that going forward we had to start introducing young lads.

“There were a lot of positives and a few negatives. We got a run on them early on (in the second half) and then we gave away three easy scores when we had them rattled a bit.”