Kildare’s amazing Orchard raid

Armagh 0-10 Kildare 0-12

Teams rarely leave south Armagh with anything more concrete than bumps, bruises and bloodied egos but Kildare confounded all expectations by not only matching Armagh in the last rounds, but landing the knockout punches as well.

Though seven men found their way into Martin Duff’s little black book, there was none of Omagh’s sulphur or rancour in evidence.

The first 50 minutes was largely dull and lifeless.

Stevie McDonnell missed two frees in front of the post, but when Paddy McKeever kicked over a dead ball to leave the teams level at 0-8 apiece the thermometer jumped a number of notches.

The expectation among the home support at that point was palpable. Hadn’t they witnessed the same scene countless times and hadn’t Armagh nearly always proven themselves to be the experts at closing off tight matches? Last year Kildare had come within a whisker of claiming a draw in this very same ground, denied in the end by an injury-time free that ended up being the difference between them making the semi-finals and not.

So, when McDonnell slotted over his sixth free of the day five minutes after McKeever’s effort we waited for Kildare to wilt.

Instead they steeled themselves for the last decisive push.

Three points from full-forward Adrian Kelly, the excellent John Doyle and the equally impressive Dermot Earley were the beams with which they broke the back of Armagh’s challenge.

A McKeever score from play brought Armagh within the one point but Kildare weren’t to be denied. Padraig Brennan bought them an insurance point with a free three minutes into extra-time and that left them two points to the good when Duffy finally called for the ball.

Kildare manager John Crofton said: “We had hoped to do well up here and we thought with Armagh having played in front of 20,000 people in Belfast last week that they might take their foot off the pedal a little bit. They certainly played a little bit like that but we’re thrilled to get the points.”

Though a superb result for Kildare, it needs to be put into its rightful context. When Kernan sat down to pick his team for yesterday’s game he did so with names like Oisin McConville, Paul McGrane, Ronan Clarke and Brian Mallon.

To compound his problems, a bout of flu succeeded where so many full-forwards have failed down the years by sidelining Francie Bellew, though young replacement Charlie Vernon coped well.

Kernan routinely takes the Alex Ferguson route of backing his players in public and doing his lambasting behind closed doors, but his disappointment with how his team fell away with 15 minutes to go was impossible to conceal.

“We’re very disappointed and that’s taking nothing away from Kildare. It was great for them to pull away from us when we should have been the ones doing that. They lifted the intensity in the second half and fair play to them but we didn’t do that.

“We can make excuses that we’ve all these boys injured and that it’ll be different when they’re back. The team today was good enough to win and they didn’t do it. A lot of boys will have to look at themselves.

“I’m going to have to stamp my authority on this team, on a few of those boys there. It hurts but hurt is a great thing and we’ve been hurt and wrote off before. The whole year isn’t going to hinge on one day but we are disappointed. We’ll certainly have a lot to work on in training this week anyway.”

In truth, Kildare could and should have won by more. Though Doyle was again sublime he didn’t receive enough backing from his attacking colleagues, particularly before the interval at which point the sides were 0-6 apiece.

Four times in the second half a Kildare player had an eminently scoreable point in his sights only to screw the ball wide or land it short. The worst miss came in first-half injury time when Kelly dropped the ball when he was close enough to smell Ciaran McKinney’s breath in the Armagh goalmouth.

For Kildare though, this was a day of positives. For Armagh a few days of painful reflection lie ahead and, you suspect, a dog of a week on the training pitch if Big Joe has anything to do with it.

ARMAGH: C McKinney; P Duffy, C Vernon, E McNulty; JP Donnelly, C McKeever, A Mallon; J McEntee (0-1), K McGeeney; P Keenan, S Kernan, T McEntee; S McDonnell (0-6f), G Swift (0-1), O’Hare. Subs: P Loughran for Mallon (inj) 33, P Toal for O’Hare 43, P McKeever (0-2) for Keenan 47, KILDARE: E Murphy; A McLoughlin, K O’Neill, J Lonergan; A Rainbow, G Ryan, D Lyons; D Earley (0-2), M Foley; D Jordan (0-1), D McCormack, J Doyle (0-7, 4f); P Brennan (0-1f), A Kelly (0-1), E Callaghan. Subs; P Mullarkey for Rainbow 50, T Fennin for Callaghan 58, K Brennan for Foley 67, H Lynch for Jordan 71.

Referee: M Duffy (Sligo).