It will be one of the more consequential fixtures this weekend. Kildare take on Westmeath in the first senior championship match at the newly-refurbished county ground in Newbridge.
The counties spent the league in different divisions but by the end were passing each other on the escalators between Divisions 2 and 3. They are also on the non-Dublin side of the Leinster draw along with Louth and Laois. The last county standing will be included in the Sam Maguire, whereas the other three will end the season scrapping for the Tailteann Cup.
Kildare captain Kevin Feely can reflect on a league campaign that ended with the county bouncing straight back up from Division 3 but also one that concluded in losing three of their last four matches, twice against Offaly, including the divisional final.
“Happy with promotion,” he says, “that was definitely an overall take. Disappointed with the games we lost in that they were all games we very easily could have won if we’d tidied up on a few different things.
“You can’t come away from either of the two Offaly games and not admit that Offaly were the better team in both of those games. But having analysed them and you look at the number of shots we’re getting away, which is really high, and our conversion rate, which is really low, it’s very easy to see why we lost both of those games.
“It was a similar story against Clare as well, so hopefully those are things that we can tidy up with a little bit of extra practice, a little bit of analysis on our decision-making and stuff like that.”
It has been a volatile couple of years for the county. Some 12 months ago they lost all of their matches in Division 2 and were eliminated from the championship by Louth. Feely spoke afterwards of not “being able to show his face” around Athy.
His background as a soccer professional in England was a point of interest when he made his return to Ireland to finish his degree and later a masters. As a talented young sportsman in Athy, he is also remembered for his academic aptitude – one teacher recalling how Feely used to do his homework on his way to training.
In 2018 he established the Kevin Feely Athletic Therapy Clinic and is also now on the faculty in DCU. Although Kildare have struggled at championship level, the captain has made individual impacts. An All-Star nominee at centrefield in 2017, he had also been selected earlier that year for Ireland’s most recent international rules trip to Australia.
Three years ago he was named man of the match despite his team losing in the qualifiers at Croke Park to a late Mayo surge, having had to recover from a Leinster final mauling by Dublin. Later that year he sustained a bad Achilles tendon injury which threatened his 2023 participation.
Yet the following June, in a late injury-time play against Roscommon when scores were level, Feely sprang into the air to claim a mark from Daniel Flynn’s ambitious kick and then with time draining away he shot the decisive point from wide on the right to win.
This year’s manager Brian Flanagan led the county to two under-20 All-Ireland finals, winning the second two years ago. The flow of new talent encourages Feely, who name checks “James McGrath, Colm Dalton, Ryan Sinkey. There’s others as well, Harry O’Neill, Ryan Burke, who have basically come in and established themselves as nailed-on starters, and brought a kind of fearlessness and a freshness to their play as well.”
He acknowledges that the arrival of a new cohort has helped to ease the scarring of the last couple of years, and agrees that Division 3 has been on balance a better proving ground for younger players.
“It’s a good point, yeah. It’s probably an ideal kind of exposure for younger players to get used to playing senior football in Division 3. I don’t know about having to get out because we were fully deserving of being there.”
Perhaps surprisingly he doesn’t view avoiding the tier 2 Tailteann Cup as a non-negotiable: “Probably not as important as other years in terms of where we are in our development.”
Leinster SFC: Kildare v Westmeath, Cedral St Conleth’s, Saturday, 7pm.
