McGeeney doffs cap to Dubs

IF imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then Kieran McGeeney doffed a metaphorical hat in Pat Gilroy’s direction when the Kildare manager and three of his players faced the media at breakfast time yesterday.

One of the first decisions his Dublin counterpart made when succeeding Paul Caffrey was to introduce the weekly briefing sessions ahead of matches over coffee and pastries in an effort to stem the flow of phone calls from scribes and broadcasters to his panel.

The reasoning was simple: the less distractions, the better his players would perform and McGeeney went a step further yesterday by washing his hands of the fourth estate 12 days before their Leinster semi-final against the Dubs.

The similarities will extend to matchday itself when two teams that are hungry to break their own glass ceilings this summer and built on a ferocious work rate and defensively sound platform meet in what is already being labelled the de facto provincial decider.

“They have a great system,” said McGeeney at Kildare’s €3.4m Hawkfield training facility outside Newbridge.

“Since Pat has come in they have made a lot of good changes to the set-up. They don’t deviate from it and it has gone well for them.

“They have gone from sort of also-rans to up there with the best. There probably isn’t that many weaknesses to their structure. They are just trying to break into that elite group at the top. They have been close enough the last few years and probably hoping this is their year.”

Dublin are without corner-back Philly McMahon who damaged medial ligaments against Laois but Kildare too will be missing some familiar faces in the shape of long-term losses, Dermot Earley, Ken Donnelly and Peter Kelly.

However, midfielder Daryl Flynn, who sat out the previous championship defeats of Wicklow and Meath with an ankle injury, has returned to training this week and may play some part in the clash on Sunday week.

McGeeney will need all hands on deck against a Dublin side that trumped Kildare in the 2009 provincial final, the last occasion these two met, despite the fact they played just under an hour of football with just 14 men after Ger Brennan’s dismissal. McGeeney still believes that was a game Kildare should have won — he isn’t alone — and rues the two soft goals his side conceded.

Similar largesse will be punished severely this time against a Dublin side that has netted 19 times in 11 games this year. All but four of them have been claimed at Croke Park and a smiling McGeeney was only too happy to bite at the suggestion that Dublin’s spring tenure at HQ would be worth the proverbial ‘few points’ to Gilroy’s side.

“It’s their home ground,” he said, “and it worked out nice for Pat this year to play in Croke Park and get the bigger crowds. I think they have had four or five extra games in it and they have got used to that.

“For players outside of Dublin it is a big deal to play in Croke Park and it can lead to anxiety and things like that on the big day but none of the Dublin players would feel that because it is home for them.

“That in itself is probably worth a few extra scores for them. You hope then for teams outside that the fact it is a big day and in Croke Park where you want to play football will make them better players.”