Kildare's influential centrefielder Kevin Feely will have the best part of a week to decide if he wants to challenge his suspension for picking up a third black card this season.
Feely was ordered off in the 63rd minute for blocking Jack McCaffrey off the ball.
“I can only presume he was very unfortunate with the black card as he’s still not sure what it was for but obviously when he goes off the pitch you’re losing a big, big player,” was the reaction of manager Cian O’Neill.
Under Rule 7.2 the penalty for three orderings off – either for black-card offences or receiving two yellows – in a year is a one-match suspension. Feely has been shown black cards in Kildare’s league matches this year against Cork on 12th February and Clare on 26th March.
Under rule the player is entitled to challenge any of the black cards. Last year a motion to Congress provided that any player, who wanted to dispute a black card, would have to wait until he was facing suspension. This was to prevent the disciplinary process becoming clogged up with challenges to double-yellow and black card sendings off.
Suspension is automatic once the required number of cards have been accumulated and a fixed notice of the one-match ban is expected to issue on Tuesday, as soon as the referee’s report is received.
On receipt – deemed to be the second working day after it has been sent – Kildare and the player will have three days to decide whether to take the case to the Central Hearings Committee – essentially five days.
Should the suspension stand, it will be a major blow for the team, as Feely has been the most eye-catching centrefielder in the country this season and his accurate place kicking is another significant asset for the county.
Selector Ronan Sweeney outlined his importance to the team.
“Look, Kevin is an outstanding midfielder in fairness. He’s a real leader in the team. When your leaders start intercepting balls, or catching balls in the air, it does give a bit of a lift to the group.
The task for Kildare is to put the defeat by Dublin behind them and try to reach a first quarter-final in two years, when they were overwhelmed by Kerry, conceding seven goals in the process. Sweeney accepted that Kildare had given the champions more trouble than they'd experienced in Leinster for four years.
Making progress
“Yeah, you’d like to think so. It’s hard to know. We still lost by nine points, which is a bit of beating in fairness. We are getting there. We are making progress. There’s no doubt about it. Just thinking about ourselves and where we started the year, to where we are now. The next two weeks are going to be huge for this team in terms of how we react to this.
“Whether we say, we’ve had a decent year so far, or whether we go on and try to get to Croke Park later on in the year. Ultimately that’s the goal.”
Statistics aren’t encouraging, as the beaten Leinster finalists haven’t won their qualifier match since Kildare managed the feat eight years ago.
Another key player whose participation is threatened is captain Eoin Doyle, who it was revealed on Sunday had gone into the match with a broken thumb and despite heavy strapping, he had to leave in the 52nd minute. Sweeney was non-committal when asked did this effectively rule the player out for the rest of the season.
“Well look, we’ll see what happens over the next couple of days and how he reacted, so hopefully not.”
The decision to play him was questioned.
“Well it was thought he did okay, he did well in fairness. He’s the captain of the team and he was insisting on it so we backed him 100 per cent. We felt we needed him out there and he felt it as well.”
Kildare's round 4B qualifier opponents will be their former manager Kieran McGeeney's county, Armagh. McGeeney turned Kildare into a real force in the qualifiers during his time in charge, leading them to the All-Ireland quarter-finals for the first time in 2008 and for each of the next four years, winning their way through to the semi-finals in 2010 where they lost to Down.
The other 4B match sees Monaghan take on Down in a rerun of the Ulster semi-final, which the latter won in one of the big surprises of the provincial championships. Both matches will take place in Croke Park on 29th July. The latter is on at 5.0 whereas Kildare-Armagh follows at 7.0.
The pairings have never taken place previously in the qualifiers although Down and Monaghan have obviously met in the Ulster championship, most recently last month.
- All-Ireland SFC qualifiers Round 4B:
Monaghan v Down, Croke Park, 5.0
Armagh v Kildare, Croke Park, 7.0
