Expect Kildare to take their chance

WHAT sticks in the mind’s eye from a weekend of upheaval a month ago is the audacity of thought and movement shown by the Down players against Kerry.

Even allowing for the hesitation and fear in Kerry’s play, the young tyros so splendidly aligned by James McCartan and marshalled on-field by Martin Clarke were a breath of fresh air – even to those who didn’t particularly want to inhale.

At four weeks remove and with a greater challenge looming large, the gloss from Down’s dethroning of the All-Ireland champions is diminishing. We know in hindsight that Kerry were fatally wounded, didn’t have the stomach for battle and were second best in all aspects of the game on the day. Having underestimated Down all year, I now run the gauntlet yet again and ask whether or not Down really are as good as they’re made out to be or whether they have they yet been properly tested in this year’s championship?

While a six-point win over the reigning All-Ireland champions is definitive (but for the late gifted penalty it would’ve been nine points), it has been forgotten in much of the discourse since the August weekend that Down were made to look quite vulnerable at various stages throughout the game by a team on its’ last legs.

That vulnerability was most evident in the 16 minutes between Paul McComiskey’s early second half score and substitute Conor Maginn’s point just shy of the hour mark.

During that barren spell for Down, all the old uncertainties and all the old fault-lines were in evidence. Damian Rafferty looked untidy in the corner and drew a yellow card for persistently fouling the Gooch. Kieran Donaghy forced a great save from Brendan McVeigh to keep the margin at four points and but for Martin Clarke’s and Kevin McKernan’s composure, Down would have leaked more scores. That they survived in adversity and thrived when the gap opened again will do wonders for their confidence but there was enough in those 16 minutes to suggest that Kildare can exploit any further weakness tomorrow.

Much has been made of the traditional swagger and self belief that Down carry with them into Croke Park on big match days. It’s almost as if it is a self fulfilling prophecy at this stage but sooner or later Down are going to learn as Napoleon did that “with audacity one can undertake anything, but not do everything”.

The key for Down is to keep doing the things they can do well and not to get sucked into playing the game on Kildare terms. You would have to expect that Kieran McGeeney will have noticed that Down attacked along the wings and maximised every square inch of open space in the corners. Kildare will surely try to usher these attacks through the central corridor tomorrow, and into the areas where their superior physical strength can become a factor.

We can expect even slow starters like Kildare not to concede a goal and three points as Kerry (and indeed they themselves) did in the quarter-finals. We can nearly set a course by Kildare’s third quarter purple patch and we can say with some degree of conviction that any team coached by McGeeney won’t be as feeble in the last 10 minutes as many of Down’s opponents have been up to now.

If, as Tolstoy said, we can never cease knowing what we know only James McCartan knows the true worth of this Down team. Maybe they have watched how Meath played into Kildare hands after 15 minutes of the quarter final and kicked into their forwards from too far back the field. One thing for sure, Down won’t give up the ball too handy unless under extreme pressure, and they also have more variety to their attacks than Meath’s one-paced, one-dimensional second-half ploys.

Maybe McCartan knows too that Peter Kelly, Hugh McGrillan and Aindriú Mac Lochlainn are as likely to be hustled into making mistakes high up the field tomorrow as Tom O’Sullivan, Mícheál Quirke and Aidan O’Mahony were four weeks ago. If the Down forwards’ lines of running are as mesmerising and unpredictable as they have been up to now, all three in the Kildare full-back line are also going to have to adjust their feet quicker than at any stage this season.

Perhaps the Mourne men have copped, as many others have, that Kildare tend to respond immediately to adversity, whether individually or as a team, and they will have their antennae on red alert after scoring a goal or after any other such big moments in the game. If Kalum King, Dan Gordon or Peter Fitzpatrick can tune in to catch the next kick-out, as opposed to Dermot Earley, Hugh Lynch or Darryl Flynn and shove it on to Kildare, we don’t know how the Lilies might react. We suspect they may come out fighting but neither Meath, Monaghan, Derry, Antrim nor Leitrim had the resources to test that suspicion.

Maybe Down have seen how Dublin exhausted themselves before committing those needless fouls in last week’s other semi-final and they will be aware of the need to replenish and renew before it gets too late. Conor Maginn and Ronan Murtagh fitted seamlessly into the game-plan off the bench and were comfortable in kicking scores a month ago.

Peter Fitzpatrick likewise made a scoring contribution from the bench, whereas Kildare have forced their hand a little by starting their qualifier trump card, Eoghan O’Flaherty after his five point contribution against Meath. Kildare’s best substitution options are all now from midfield back but what if the need is at the scoring end of the field late on?

Despite all the beguiling factors feeding into the mix ahead of tomorrow’s showdown, the balance theory for a Kildare win is simple and attractive. Damian Rafferty aside, can you think of one other Down player who didn’t play to potential in the quarter-final? Me neither. It is indeed a rare thing in Gaelic football to get 14 out of 15 performers playing near the limits of their possibilities on a given day but Down managed it and won handsomely in the end.

This time out, Ambrose Rogers is a huge loss as captain, and at least three or four Down players are unlikely to play as well again.

Can Kildare improve? Everything they were doing towards the end of the six-game sequence up to and including August weekend had the semblance of something intended. No more than tomorrow’s opponents, they are playing with a sense of purpose but what differentiates them from Down is that there is a sense that they are in their prime.

With the exception of Dermot Earley, September evenings on the training ground have eluded all players on the field tomorrow. Both teams share the feeling that they may never get a better opportunity to experience those heady, heady days. I expect Kildare to take the opportunity.