Callaghan: Players fully behind Geezer

Kildare’s outgoing captain Eamonn Callaghan says there is unanimous support for Kieran McGeeney and the entire backroom staff amongst the players, who are in favour of the existing management structure being retained.

McGeeney’s second three-year term as boss ended with the qualifier defeat by Tyrone last month and talks are expected to take place shortly with county chiefs on whether he will continue.

Callaghan says the players have been frustrated by negative reports surrounding the set-up — in terms of the team’s strength and conditioning, fitness or tactics — and rejects suggestions they are lobbying for change.

“I don’t know where that’s coming from,” said Callaghan yesterday. “It’s not coming from us. There was a report that we would support Kieran staying on if he changed the backroom team. That’s 100% wrong.

“We never mentioned a change in the backroom set-up. It wasn’t discussed at all. It’s very annoying. We just met up to look back on the year, there wasn’t a vote or anything like that. It came back to the players themselves rather than pointing the finger at management.”

The Naas man met with some players and spoke to the rest either in person or by phone before a meeting on Saturday, and states there was not one dissenting voice about McGeeney. He insists it is the manager’s choice to bring whoever he wants to work with him and that there was no issue with preparation.

Callaghan also emphasises the final decision on what will happen will come down to the county board and that the players are not seeking to exert any undue influence on the process. They do feel their view should be known, however.

“Every single player I spoke to wants Kieran to stay on. We talked about different things, and areas we need to improve, but most of it was about the players and what we need to do.

“We didn’t have a good year this year, but we feel Kieran is the man to change it around for us. If you look at the championship, we have been at the quarter-final stage at least every year until this year. Before that, we were getting beaten in the first round and the first round of the qualifiers. We were struggling big time.

“Kieran came in and turned the whole thing around. Some people forget what it was like before 2008.”

He added: “The players feel we let everyone down; the management, ourselves, supporters. When we crossed the line in the big games this year, we didn’t perform.

“As a team, we made too many mistakes in the big games, giving the ball away constantly, kicked wides, made basic errors which cost us big time. And you can’t afford to make those basic mistakes against the top teams.

“This isn’t a decision made by the senior players; it has been done collectively as a group. All the players are in agreement with showing their support for Kieran and the backroom team.

“We didn’t lose the Tyrone game because we weren’t fit or strong. We just kept giving the ball away. We probably played the worst half of football we played all year in the first half.

“And doing that, we still got it back level. We missed a couple of chances then that might have kicked it on. They’re the things we focused on and the things we must improve on.”