Cian O’Neill: Kildare starting with clean slate

The new Kildare manager Cian O’Neill insists there’s no sign of shattered confidence in his inherited panel but accepts he won’t know for sure if they’ve overcome last summer’s disasters until they’re placed in a sticky position again.

The Lilies pulled off one of the shocks of the Championship by knocking out Cork to reach the All-Ireland quarter-finals but were then heavily beaten by Kerry.

That 7-16 to 0-10 drubbing from the Kingdom was Kildare’s second huge defeat of the summer having previously lost to Dublin by 19 points in the Leinster semi-finals.

The last two years of former boss Jason Ryan’s reign also yielded back-to-back relegations to Division 3 of the Allianz League while key players including Tomas O’Connor and Darroch Mulhall quit the set up.

O’Neill said an invitation was sent out to all players who were on the panel in the last 18 months and that “95%” are back and forming an extended pre-season squad.

He declined to name the 5% who declined and knocked back the suggestion that the group as a whole must be downbeat after their various setbacks though conceded that he can’t definitively answer that one just yet.

“I think the fact that we’ve come in, we’ve drawn a line under everything... it’s not that they’ve forgotten what’s happened but I think it’s more that they’re — and if I was a player I’d be thinking the same way — I’d just be looking forward rather than backwards with what we can bring as a group,” said O’Neill.

“But until you’re in a quagmire and you’re four points down with six minutes to go, you’re not really going to know how your players are going to respond or if they’re thinking back on what happened last year.

“But, at the moment, it certainly hasn’t been brought up.

“We’re on the pitch since last Tuesday and every session has been excellent: High tempo, high application, attitude is great so there’s no evidence of that.”

O’Neill did lay down a marker for the future when he said he believed Kildare would not be beaten by such wide margins under his tenure.

“One thing I would like to think is that nothing like that will ever happen with the current group of players, with the current management,” said the former All-Ireland final-winning Kerry coach.

“That’s not to say there’s not going to be defeats, of course there will, everyone loses sometimes but I think the most disappointing thing for the players that day [against Kerry] was that they just stopped performing. They didn’t play until the end and four goals going in very quickly is not a reflection of what they can do but it was a reflection of what they did do that day.”

He was speaking at the launch of the Bord na Móna Leinster GAA series of games which includes the O’Byrne Cup that Kildare have won three times since 2011. Eanna O’Connor, son of Kerry managerial legend Jack, is part of O’Neill’s panel, having joined the Moorefield club though, according to the manager, has been “held back a little by injuries”.

Speaking generally on the notion of recruiting non-native players, O’Neill said he’d only do it in the right circumstances.

The likes of Brian Lacey and Karl O’Dwyer have been high profile additions to Kildare down the years though Seanie Johnston’s move from Cavan during Kieran McGeeney’s reign caused outrage.

“I think if someone is living and playing in Kildare, which is important, and they want to play with Kildare, that’s certainly something to look at,” said O’Neill.

“But I think in terms of parachuting someone in, no, I wouldn’t be a strong advocate of that.”