Kildarepost
O'Neill happy as Kildare get back on track
Harrington aiming for Ascot glory
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Thursday 14 June 2018
www.Kildarepost.com
Derry dust as Kildare thrive Lilywhites enjoy big wins in both codes over Ulster men
Derry's Paul Clearly and KIldare's Kevin Whelan PHOTO: Jim Dunne
Peter Kelly puts the pressure on Derry's Jack Doherty PHOTO: Dessie Loughrey
Busy Saturday on the cards for fans
It’s going to be a busy Saturday for Kildare fans on June 23 for Kildare fans as both senior men’s teams face into massive games within five hours of each other. The GAA have confirmed that the
Kildare hurlers Christy Ring Cup final against London will be played at 2pm in Croke Park, with Carlow referee Patrick Murphy officiating on that game. Fans will have to be quick out the gates to make it down the M4 towards
the midlands that evening as the footballers take on Longford in the second round of the All-Ireland qualifiers in Pearse Park, with Cavan man Joe McQuillan refereeing that one.
Longford for the Lilies Hurlers heading to Croker Patrick Ward sport@kildarepost.com
Longford are next up for Kildare as the draw for the second round of the All-Ireland qualifiers threw up a familiar Leinster face for the Lilywhites following their uplifting win over Derry on Saturday afternoon. Cian O’Neill’s men went to Owenbeg and emerged with a 2-22 to 2-14 victory to get a first win in almost a year and deliver a much needed boost for the county’s footballers,
and hopefully some confidence as they look ahead to a date with the Midlanders on Saturday week. O’Neill will not be counting his chickens and looking towards the Super 8’s however, insisting that Kildare can only take it one game at a time considering the form they have shown already this year, and any notion of making the last eight remains a distant goal at this stage. “Absolutely not, no,” he quipped when asked if the Super 8’s were now the target.
“We’ll target where we’re at in 14 days time. We’ll take it one match at a time. To be honest, that’s how we targeted Leinster and we still came up short. It was one match at a time. We have no right to do that, we just have to focus on the work we can put in on our preparation for our opponent in two weeks’ time, whoever that may be.” Kildare’s last championship meeting with Denis Connerton’s men came in 2015 when the Lilywhites hammered them 2-24 to 0-11 in a round 3A qualifier.
Patrick Ward sport@kildarepost.com
The Kildare hurlers will line out in Croke Park for the first time in four years when they face London on June 23 in GAA headquarters. They reached the Christy Ring Cup fi nal thanks to a thrilling 3-18 to 2-13 win over Derry in Iniskeen on Sunday evening, racking up their fourth win in succession as they continued their momentum towards championship glory.
Speaking after the game, manager Joe Quaid outlined how this was the goal all year. In fairness to the Limerick man, he said that before the league started, but the way the Lilywhites have picked themselves up from a winless Division 2A campaign has been mightily impressive. “I said it after the league campaign – and I took a bit of flak probably from the players in stages – that we didn’t put all our eggs into the league basket which we did last year, and this was the goal which was to get to
Croke Park,” said Quaid. “To be fair to the players, and it’s not any easy thing to do coming off a poor, poor league campaign, to park it, and we took two and a half weeks off. We had James Burke’s illness in the middle of it and I think things like that galvanised us and we came in with a clean slate, went back to basics and, as I said before we went in against Roscommon, lads what we have on Saturday is a game of hurling. That was our whole focus since the league was to get basics, the basics of hurling.”