National Football League Semi-finals: Keith Dugganprofiles talented Kildare forward John Doyle who has proved a handful for opposing teams in recent years.
Last Sunday afternoon, Liam Kearns permitted himself a thin smile when it was put to him that Kildare's John Doyle had caused his side some trouble. "Well, John Doyle is a good player. And he has been doing that to teams throughout the league."
The loquacious Kerryman did not need to elaborate. As it happened, his Laois team had coped fairly well with the lean Kildare attacker who has quietly become the white glinting jewel in the Lilywhite team.
To begin with, they were highly disciplined in defence, negating Doyle's craft as a free-taker. They shifted the redoubtable Darren Rooney, the regular full back who has been made makeshift number six, out of the centre half position and brought out the tidy corner back Padraig McMahon to tail Doyle.
Fifteen minutes in, it was clear that while McMahon - who was labouring with a slight injury - could cope with Doyle's pace, he struggled badly with the Allenwood man in the air. Later Joe Higgins, the Laois man-marking specialist, was switched on to Doyle and overall the concession was not too bad. Kildare's leading marksman finished the afternoon with four points, just one of those a free. In comparison to the fortunes of other counties, Laois got away lightly.
Even so, much of Kildare's play revolved around Doyle. The big crowd of 15,000 grew animated and expectant whenever Doyle took possession. When he was on the ball, good things happened. Doyle does not fit any particular stereotype.
He has the leap and grafting ethics of a workaday midfielder, the serene temperament of a top-class free-taker and the thrilling flair and instinct of a natural scoring forward. In addition, he has a completely unique style, his lean frame loping forward as he attacks with the ball and an ability to shoot on the run, making him extremely hard to stop.
With very little fanfare, Doyle has become Kildare's top championship scoring forward of the last 20 years, his total of 1-92 in 28 matches eclipsing the best of such folk heroes as Niall 'Razor' Buckley (3-71) and Martin Lynch (4-31). He has been Kildare's leading championship scorer for four of the past five summers and has led the team in league totals for the past two years.
Although he won a Leinster championship with Kildare in his breakthrough year of 2000, he has flourished in what has been a stable if unspectacular period for Lilywhite football. Perhaps as a consequence, Doyle's feats have been overlooked during the awards seasons: he has yet to join Kildare's All-Star table of 10 and only in the past couple of years has his excellence come to be recognised on the national stage.
NOW, AFTER AN ADMIRABLEleague run in Division One B, Doyle has an early-season opportunity to shine in Croke Park. Such is Doyle's reputation that tomorrow's opposition, Donegal, are certain to plan for him as carefully as did Laois. Given his credentials, it is tempting for other counties to believe that the way to shut Kildare down is to shut the Allenwood man down.
"Naturally enough, people often say what would we do if John Doyle was missing or if Dermot Earley was missing," acknowledges Ken Doyle, the Allenwood man's first cousin who played in the 1998 All-Ireland football final defeat to Galway.
"And there is some truth in it. But the same is true for any county, whether it is Colm Cooper with Kerry or Steven McDonnell with Armagh. John has become a hugely important player for the county and everyone knows that. But the thing about him is that he is not just a corner forward waiting to be fed ball. He has a real work ethic and he finds ways to make things happen. For Allenwood, he has always played midfield. It would be a waste putting him in forward because he usually scores as much for us from the middle and he gets through a lot of work as well. And the same is true with Kildare. He gets on the ball."
Doyle got his first championship start against Laois six years ago. "He came in and took my place," says his cousin with a rueful laugh.
JOHN DOYLE HAD NOTbeen particularly feted as a youngster, not making the minor grade and only making the under-21 panel in his final year of eligibility, where he was used at left wing back in his first game before being switched to the attacking lines.
He was competent. It was only when he came in for trials under Mick O'Dwyer that he began to shine. O'Dwyer was immediately taken with the ease with which this lean young fellow handled the football and with the fact that he had the gait of a middle-distance runner. "Johnny would run laps all night for you," confirms Ken. "He would run you into the ground. "Dwyer loved to see that."
After his indifferent underage career, he never looked back as a senior. All of his 28 championship appearances have been as a starter and he very quickly made the number 11 position his own. In Allenwood, Doyle's ascension was no great surprise. Both Ken and John's fathers were highly regarded club players - Harry and John Doyle lined out together for the club in a tournament about eight years ago.
"John was always full of football but he was too light as a teenager," says John Roddy of the Allenwood club.
"But there was always a feeling he would make it. He had a great attitude. I still remember him ringing home after training in Newbridge when he got his first championship start. He was delighted. John would have great belief in his own ability but he was never under illusions, was always prepared to work. I suppose he has become the pride and joy of the club. When we won the county title in 2004 against St Laurence's, he kicked this point I will never forget. It wasn't much of a game, a kind of dogfight but it needed something to break it and he landed this left-footed shot from 40 yards that decided the game.
"And since then he has become very prominent with Kildare but he is always around the club. We have these presentations on a regular basis and it is almost getting embarrassing because someone always seems to say, 'suppose we'll get Johnny for that.' And he is always there."
Ken Doyle says he was always astonished by his cousin's appetite for club fare. He has several memories of his leaving a league game in Newbridge and landing at the club ground still in his gear, changing into club colours and coming on for the second half. "And this would be after a hard intercounty match. I might have gone along to watch Allenwood and sometimes, you wouldn't even feel like doing that. You might simply be tired of football. But John has always been extremely dedicated to it.
"He is very serious about his free-taking and he spends a lot of hours up at the field with a bag of footballs. I would put him in that Larry Tompkins bracket in the kind of dedication he brings to his game."
It was unfortunate for Doyle and Kildare that he was a couple of years too young for the great All-Ireland adventure under Mick O'Dwyer. Kildare had an accomplished attack during that period but it is tantalising to wonder what Doyle might have added to the set-up. Instead, it has been his fate to excel during a stop-start few years for the Lilywhites. John Crofton said last Sunday that this league campaign was partly about atonement for the disappointment of last year's championship, when Kildare crashed out of Leinster after an absorbing game with Offaly and soon after they exited the championship.
KILDARE WON THEIRsecond league title back in 1986 and given that Donegal have never won the competition, there ought to be a real vigour about tomorrow's contest, whereas the nature of the Mayo-Galway derby might well be compromised by the proximity of their championship meeting. Certainly, the scenes in Newbridge last Sunday indicated the Kildare crowd felt the team was on the verge of a new wave of accomplishment.
"There is a lot of talk again," says Ken Doyle. "Moorefield had a good run in the club championship during the winter and people got behind them. And then Kildare sort of picked that goodwill up in the league and it is nice to be heading up to Croke Park in April. But I think even when things weren't going well, John and the other senior players like Enda Murphy and Anthony Rainbow were always very positive about Kildare. There are a lot of good footballers coming through under John Crofton and this league run means they can look ahead with confidence."
Donegal manager Brian McIver has already identified Doyle as a potential game winner, noting that "this year, he has been scoring for fun." Whether Donegal detail a specialist marker remains to be seen but either way, Doyle will find a way to influence events. It was notable that against Laois, six of the seven forwards used all scored from play and Doyle was involved in the build-up to many of those points, most memorably when he played a wonderful one-two with Tadhg Fennin, who has been another constant on the Kildare team.
Another new weapon has been Moorefield's young full forward Jason Phillips, a towering, traditional forward who relishes the high ball. Kildare is not just the John Doyle Show. But he is definitely worth the admission price.
