All of those plusses must come with the asterisk that was the poor challenge offered by UCD. The reasons for optimism were there, and included:

-Kieran McGeeney’s first win as manager.

-A man-of-the-match performance by Mikey Conway.

-Much more encouraging results from the Dermot Earley experiment, due to much better supply.

-Impressive showings from the likes of Ken Donnelly and Morgan O’Flaherty.

-A clean sheet of sorts defensively, as UCD failed to score from play.

That last statistic could also be seen as a negative, as many of the frees were brought closer due to dis-sent, and Kildare conceded far too many to begin with.

Referee Paul Finnegan was incredibly strict, punishing the flimsiest of tackles at every stage. It’s extremely, extremely unlikely that the crucial matches this summer will be refereed in such an excruciatingly nit-picking fashion.

Back to the positives. For the first time at senior level, Conway looked like he belonged, putting in only one bad pass all day, harvesting seven points, and kicking no wides. On this showing, he is likely to start with the No 11 jersey on his back against Tyrone in the first round of the league.

As well as scoring freely, he hit the sort of ball to Earley that was so lacking against Longford the previous week, most of it beauti-fully weighted, fed at a diagonal angle and giving the All Star an advantage over the UCD defenders.

It was a bit of a shame that Kildare U21 and UCD full-back, Rathangan man Declan Brennan, had to retire injured after nine minutes, for he lost a chance to impress senior management.

His replacement, Donegal man Ken Doherty, got something of a lesson off Earley for the rest of the afternoon.

The Sarsfields man kicked two points, won the frees for three, and was directly involved in the buid-up to another. That he had such an impact while still not looking completely comfortable with the role suggests the ploy will be perservered with.

Conway was even more impressive, giving a master-class in point-kicking that we have not seen from a Kildare player other than Johnny Doyle for some time.

Ken Donnelly, playing as a roving corner-forward, also had an excellent game, two of his three points, gems from play.

And if you take the fouls and dissent out of it, Kildare’s back-line was resilient, with Carbury’s O’Flaherty probably the pick of them, combining intelligent reading with accurate distribution.

Willie Heffernan and Killian Brennan gave Kildare a physical advantage at midfield, and those around them dominated the breaks.

Both need to improve on their distribution. While the ball in to the full-forward line was markedly improved this week, Kildare were still sloppy at times, aberrations that McGeeney will doubtless try and weed out as the season progresses.

It must be pointed out that UCD were a huge disappointment. Laois dual starlet John O’Loughlin scored all their points from frees, while corner-back Brendan Teehan was sent off in the second half for an off-the-ball strike on Conway.

The Lilies were in control from the off, Conway, the impressive Ken Donnelly and Willie Heffernan all scoring from play in the first ten minutes to put them 0-3 to 0-1 up.

Conway and Donnelly shared two apiece to stretch the lead to 0-7 to 0-2, with O’Loughlin’s accuracy the students’ only riposte.

An impressive free and 45 from Conway, both earned by Earley, had Kildare 0-9 to 0-4 up at the break. Within three minutes of the restart, the big full-forward had won another free and kicked his first from play to extend the lead to seven points.

Earley’s second followed a minute later, and UCD’s afternoon only got worse on 45 minutes, when Conway hit the deck after a challenge from Teehan. The UCD corner-back took exception and appeared to strike Conway as he lay on the ground, earning a straight red from Finnegan.

Conway compounded the damage by converting the free from out on the wing.

Kildare then withdrew both Earley and Conway, and from there the contest died out as O’Loughlin added five more frees for the students and substitute John O’Donoghue got Kildare’s only further score.

Interestingly, Two Mile House centre-back Peter Kelly came on for UCD late in the game. The promising youngster is obviously making an impression at Belfield, even if he isn’t on the Kildare U21 panel this year.

While it would be stupid to read much into this game, the fact that Kildare won without such luminaries as Doyle, Michael Foley, the holidaying Moorefield contingent and a handful of others suggests that the new manager at least has some material to work with as he bids to raise the Lilies from the inter-county doldrums.

Kildare now face Louth, who humiliated them here in the qualifiers last summer, in the shield semi-final at Newbridge on Sunday.

KILDARE: Thomas Corley (Moorefield); Johnny Browne (Suncroft); Andrew McLoughlin (Ellistown), Morgan O’Flaherty (Carbury); Emmet Bolton (Eadestown), Mick Wright (Celbridge), Mark Scanlon (Round Towers); Willie Heffernan (Nurney, 0-1), Killian Brennan (Suncroft); Eamonn Callaghan (Naas), Mikey Conway (Nurney, 0-7, 3f, 1 45), Karl Ennis (Maynooth); Adrian Kelly (Athy), Dermot Earley (Sarsfields, 0-2), Ken Donnelly (Ellistown, 0-3, 1f). Subs: James Kavanagh (Ballymore) for Conway (52 min); John O’Donoghue (Kilcock, 0-1) for Earley (52 min); Niall Browne (Two Mile House) for Callaghan (57 min); Damien Hendy (Castledermot) for McLoughlin (59 min); Alan Barry (Sarsfields) for Donnelly (67 min).

UCD: Stephen Gallagher (Westmeath); Brendan Teehan (Kerry), Declan Brennan (Kildare), Cormac Brady (Monaghan); Dermot Bailey (Meath), Ken Doherty (Donegal), Brendan Quill (Kerry); Niall Corkery (Dublin), John O’Loughlin (Laois, 0-9f); Brian Collins (Sligo), Cian O’Sullivan (Dublin), Dane O’Dowd (Cavan); Ciarán Kelly (Meath), Brian Mullin (Roscommon), Declan Gilhooly (Leitrim).

Subs: Risteard Kinsella (Wexford) for Brennan (9 min); Matt McKenna (Monaghan) for Collins (47 min); Colm Dwyer () for Gilhooly (47 min); Ciarán Molloy (Donegal) for Gallagher (56 min); Peter Kelly (Kildare) for Quill (62); REF: Paul Finnegan, Louth.

 

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