We never came out of the traps, admits dejected Crofton

TO listen to John Crofton outside the Kildare dressing-room yesterday, to hear him admit that his team had not done themselves justice, it’s clear that there will be a lot of soul-searching within the camp over the next couple of weeks.

All the more so when he acknowledged the fact that the Lillywhites don’t have ‘the culture, or the tradition’ of coming back strongly through the backdoor! They have seven weeks to prepare for the first round of the All-Ireland qualifiers on July 7 and whatever about the fate of Killian Brennan, there is a possibility that Dermot Earley will have recovered sufficiently from his ankle operation to return.

The one thing they have on their side is ‘time,’ he agreed. Firstly, the players will have a break for a week. They will have the opportunity to think of ‘the awful lot of time’ put into preparing for yesterday’s game, only to see much of it going to waste.

“Fellows need to think about it themselves, as to how we can improve,’’ he commented.

“We didn’t come anywhere near the pace and tempo we produced even in the final stages of the League.

“I don’t think we really came out of the traps, and (even) when we did settle down I thought in the first half we missed a few simple opportunities. The scoring rate for the possession we had was poor.’’

Believing that the second of the Meath goals “certainly” killed off the game as a contest, he wasn’t too pleased about the concession of the first goal, scored by Darren Fay in the 27th minute.

“That came out of nothing. Darren Fay had come up the field and was still hanging around when we lost the ball coming out of defence. We had a goal chance immediately after that and didn’t take it.

“The second half performance was hugely disappointing.”

Nevertheless he refused to use the absence of Earley and Brennan as an excuse for their defeat, feeling that they had won “more breaking ball” than Meath in the first half and “nearly” gained more possession overall.

“As leaders the guys that were missing were a loss, no doubt about that. But, the midfield performance wasn’t the worst element of it.

“I think the Meath finishing was very good. They got some tremendous scores and when they counter-attacked they got scores against the run of their play. They’re fairly clinical in their finishing!’’