While all games carry the same weight in terms of points in Divison 1, this Sunday’s meeting with Monaghan in Newbridge already seems to be slightly more pivotal than others in the top tier. Both teams lost last weekend in their opening games – falling to the All-Ireland champions and the beaten finalists respectively – and they are both now favourites for relegation, albeit after just 70 minutes of football.
Monaghan have been notoriously quick starters in the league over the last three seasons, losing just one of their six accumulative opening pair of games since 2015, placing them in a comfortable position for survival from an early stage. They will arrive in Newbridge on Sunday looking to make sure that record doesn’t slip from their grasp, and manager Malachy O’Rourke will be keen to ensure that they pick up two points on the road to get on the right track.
The problem with opposition such as Monaghan is that they will be suited to St Conleth’s Park. They like to play a tight, strangling type of system that effectively crowds out the opposition and allows the Farney men to counter-attack and, eventually, work it to Conor McManus to finish it off with a score. McManus didn’t play against Mayo last weekend, and while it is always great to see the game’s best players performing in St Conleth’s Park, Kildare fans won’t be too upset if he is absent once again on Sunday.
With Neill Flynn missing through injury there will be a place up for grabs in the full-forward line, it means that Ben McCormack will start his first game for Kildare this year after shaking off some injury problems. Tommy Moolick, more suited to the hustle and bustle of the tight confines of Conleth’s rather than the open expanses of Croke Park, is also an addition to the side in the place of Kevin Feely, who limped off with a calf injury last week against Dublin.
When mapping out the fixtures before the beginning of the league you would have thought that Sunday represents Kildare’s most favourable tie, and how they brush off the defeat to Dublin will be key. Cian O’Neill suggested that they will be working on some flaws from last week’s game, but the eight-day turnaround means that any meaningful work would probably have been compacted into one session.
“That’s the joy of the league – you’ve got to put that performance behind you,” O’Neill stated after the defeat to Dublin.
“Obviously we will reflect and analyse and really improve on it, but we’ve got to turn our attention to Monaghan at home next week and very quickly Tyrone after. The league is never going to be one loss or defined by any one match, but we’ve really got to learn from the mistakes we made today and turn things around. As I said, the lads are going to be disappointed, but it’s up to us to rise them again and look forward to a home match against Monaghan in Newbridge.”
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