carLOW report

Yesterday was not a pretty day

but don’t fret….we can go no lower.

The Line up
1.Gally
2. Kevin Toner 3. Derek Crilly 4.Darren O’Hanlon
5.Anthony Williams 6.Pop 7.Dessie Finnegan
8.Decky Byrne 9. Robbie Brodigan
10.Bevan Duffy 11. Danny  O’Connor 12. Tommy Durnin
13.Ronan Holdcroft 14. Hugh McGinn 15 Ryan Burns

Subs
Ruairi Moore For McGinn
Nixon for Brodigan
McComish for Dessie
McCann for Durnin
Robert Quigley for Holdcroft

Rallying call to myself

Right, I don’t really know where to start hence, I’ve not  really written alot this morning!

The performance and result was as ugly as Carlow’s jersey but I’m trying to stay positive and not get too carried away as it is only January.

For what it’s worth, Carlow had fair more seasoned campaigners playing than we did, in vital positions too, down the spine of the team and that showed.

and we need a reality check here too….Carlow beat us in the championship only in 2011!

Expectations

The game was bad and then on the way home hearing Fermanagh beat Derry made it even  badder? worse.

Why would that make you feel worse, you ask?

We play Fermanagh in 18 days time.
first game of the league.
in Enniskillen.
on a Saturday night.

So, if anything, yesterdays Carlow loss has really lowered the counties expectations for the coming year,
We thought Kildare was just Kildare and the UCD win was just a late winner.
nope, without getting too low we are building.

Throw in the Fermanagh win and it really hits home actually how hard it will be for us in Division 3.

We now have to realise staying in Division three this year will be an be onerous ask but vital for us to build.

Learning curve

Believe it or not we showed some real signs yesterday

signs of disaster
and
signs of promise.

In equal proportion.

Signs of disaster:
The ease in which Carlow cut through us if they can do it it’s a sign of disaster.
System failure or rather the complete lack of a system in place either going forward or worse, defensively.
Kickouts, they were a massive problem yesterday and without PK to paper over the cracks they could be our downfall this season. They need to get quicker, sharper and on the money come Fermanagh.
Communication between the players was non existant yesterday could be the fact they still are getting used to one another.
Kelly has yet to get his first win under his belt.

These signs of disaster can easily be worked on and we have time to do so before the away trip to Fermanagh

Signs of Promise:
The character we showed yesterday will stand to us and our young players, to concede early goals in both halfs we never waivered we nearly levelled the game having gone 6 points down in the second half that is not to be sniffed at.

We’ve experimented and more importantly the management team have experimented and hopefully they’ve have learnt a great deal in their introductory crash course to management that is the 3 games in 7 days O’Byrne cup. They’ll know their panel and themselves a lot better now.

We’ve a large chunk of players to come back and improve us greatly. Not even counting the college contingent Adrian Reid, Gerry Hoey, James Stewart in defence alone while Colm Judge, Peter Kirwan and Derek Maguire will bolster the attack for the Fermanagh game.
Then of the 4 college players Brian Donnelly came off the bench for DCU on saturday night, Eoin O’Connor played the whole game in the middle in their draw with Meath. Conor Grimes was on the DIT team that won again they’ve a semi final with Kildare to look forward to now….thats good news. Paddy Reilly from UCD shipped a heavy loss to Kildare but Reilly did not play.
The sole purpose of these preseason competitions is to unearth some new players and improve fringe players I think we’ve done that.
(I’ll be picking a team and squad for the national league over the coming days in which there are new faces involved. so stay tuned)