GAELIC GAMES:"I'M SURE you want to get this over with as quickly as I do," was Kieran McGeeney's slightly discouraging preamble to yesterday's post-match press conference. We needn't have worried, as the Kildare manager performed a satisfyingly full contemplation on his team's impressive victory over Leinster champions Meath.
Admittedly there was a lemony sharpness to his response to a question on the team’s latest soaring wides count, as he brought up a previous suggestion his athletic charges should spend more time practising kicks and less time in the gym. “We play football all the time. I find it amusing people who don’t go to our training like to pass comment on it. I still like them to take shots. Their movement was good. They are good footballers – probably over-keen or over-zealous at times.
“I could be wrong but over the last two years I’d say we are one of the highest scoring forward units at championship level. People say we can’t shoot. We might need more shots but we are just a team that likes to shoot. You have to pull the trigger. What did we score today? – 16 scores and we probably should have had two goals as well, but that’s the way it goes . . . but as long as we are scoring more than the opponents I’m happy.”
He attributed the second-half improvement to improved decisiveness. “I thought we were trying to make too sure of the shot (in the first half). There was fellas bouncing to pull the ball back inside and the next thing you do there’s two or three men get back on it. This time they were coming off the shoulder and creating better angles.”
And does he think the team has improved from last year? “You can’t say that because if I say something now, this time three weeks youse could be telling me something different. You try to improve every year, you try to come up with different methods but there’s nothing like big games to help players improve.”
His Meath counterpart, Séamus McEnaney, came in an after a rough couple of weeks, the loss of two selectors – who he needs to replace this week – culminating in the loss of the county’s title. His comments on the twin controversies of the disallowed goal and the sending-off of Brian Farrell were eagerly sought. “The information I’m getting is . . . that Brian Farrell was a non-sending off. To end the game with 14 men and a disallowed goal is disappointing but I’m not using them as an excuse because these will go for you some days but they went against us today.
“But, listen, we were in a good position to win the game at half-time, coughed up some easy scores at the beginning of the second-half and we didn’t keep up the intensity that we had in the first half.”
