Kildare 2-11 Meath 0-14:WITH 56 minutes on the clock in Navan on Saturday night and the sides separated by no more than a breath, Meath captain Séamus Kenny threw himself into a lunge. He was trying to prevent a Kildare pass infield finding its man and instead caught the pointed end of an elbow. The collision was accidental, its consequences brutal.
Kenny ended up with seven stitches in his forehead and didn’t see action again. Emmet Bolton, the Kildare player alongside whom he had spent most of the evening, made merry for the rest of the game, scoring 1-1 from wing-back to put a chasm between the teams where before there’d been barely a crack. Talk about a game of inches.
It made all the difference. This All-Ireland qualifier was anyone’s at the point where Kenny sprinted off for repairs. Meath had turned over the three-point deficit they’d faced just after half-time and were beginning to figure out how to best use the hefty breeze at their back. Kildare were working possession through the clever hands of James Kavanagh and Johnny Doyle but without always turning it into scores. A grandmaster would have looked at the board and declared stalemate.
But Kenny’s absence changed everything. Meath moved Stephen Bray out to wing forward, which had the dual effect of removing his scoring threat from in front of the posts and gifting the super-fit Bolton, a player just returning from injury, to track him through a high-wire ending to the game.
Bolton pushed forward as an auxiliary attacker and twice slipped through for scores. It was the winning and losing of the game, as Meath manager Séamus McEnaney accepted afterwards.
“The crucial point was from 12 minutes to go to eight minutes to go,” he said. “Séamus Kenny went off in that period but the sides were level and we had three or four opportunities to possibly go one or two points up and we took the wrong options. In that particular period, there were four breaking balls and Kildare won four of them and that’s Séamus Kenny’s speciality. Stephen Bray came out to the half-forward line and Paddy (O’Rourke) went in full forward. We’re not pointing the fingers anywhere. It’s a team game and you go to the man closest to you to put pressure on him.”
Bolton took the applause for Kildare but it was Kavanagh who most deserved the curtain call. An All Star nominee for the past two seasons, he’s had a difficult summer drifting in and out of Kieran McGeeney’s good graces. This was the third time he started on the bench but his intelligent distribution when the game was in the balance was vital and none of the three scores that won the game – Bolton’s 1-1 and a Ronan Sweeney point, all between the 64th and 66th minute – could have happened without Kavanagh’s composure.
These qualifiers seem to suit Kildare’s ear like nobody else’s. You have to go as far back as 2007 for the last time they lost one – the 1-16 to 1-10 defeat to Louth that called last orders on John Crofton’s time in charge. We’ll save you the maths and confirm this means they’ve yet to come out on the wrong side of one under McGeeney. Played 12, won 11, drawn one against Antrim before going to Casement Park and winning the replay by nine points. Against 11 different counties too, with all but three of those encounters on the road.
“You don’t really have much choice,” said McGeeney afterwards when their fine record was put to him.
“It’s a bit like somebody hitting you – you either stand up or lie down and we’re trying to get the fellas to stand up. We feel there is a lot more football in us. It’s hard every week when we are told we are not natural footballers. You just try to keep on going, trying to improve with every game. The thing about being a pundit is that eventually you’ll be right.”
They roll on to meet Derry next Saturday. They still have their flat spots and pressure points – Tomás O’Connor is a handful at full forward but his positioning can get a little predictable and Kevin Reilly dominated him here after an early wobble. But they have momentum and they know how to dig out a win. In a summer that will come down to small margins, these are priceless commodities indeed.
KILDARE: S Connolly; A Mac Lochlainn, M Foley, H McGrillen (0-1); G White, M O’Flaherty (0-1), E Bolton (1-2); J Doyle (1-2, 1-0 pen, 0-2 frees), D Flynn; P O’Neill (0-1), E O’Flaherty, E Callaghan (0-1); R Kelly, T O’Connor, F Dowling (0-1). Subs: J Kavanagh (0-1) for Kelly (23 mins), B Flanagan for White (half-time), C Brophy for Dowling (47 mins), R Sweeney (0-1) for E O’Flaherty (55 mins), O Lyons for Bolton (67 mins).
MEATH: B Murphy; G O’Brien, K Reilly, C King; C Lenehan, S McAnarney, M Burke; S O’Rourke (0-1), B Meade; P Gilsenan, J Sheridan, S Kenny (0-2); S Bray (0-2), G Reilly, C Ward (0-8, 0-5 frees, 0-2 45s). Subs: M Ward for Meade (23 mins), B Farrell (0-1, free) for Lenehan (29 mins), J Queeney for G Reilly (45 mins), P O’Rourke for Kenny (56 mins), A Moyles for Queeney (62 mins).
Referee: J McQuillan (Cavan).
