IS BRIAN FLANAGAN THE MANAGER TO BRING KILDARE FACE-TO-FACE WITH THEIR POTENTIAL?
WHEN BRYAN MURPHY threw his hat into the ring for the Kildare chairman’s job at December’s AGM, he did so with a vision.
A fans favourite during the Mick O’Dwyer era, and later a successful underage manager with Lilywhite teams, and a senior Kildare selector, he felt compelled to do something about the county senior team’s fortunes.
“It’s hard to put your finger on why we’re not achieving,” he told The42 at the time. “I suppose the thing I’d say is that we’re not delivering to a sum greater than the parts. That’s really the thing.”
Murphy referenced last July’s retirement of long serving defender Eoin Doyle. The Naas man played for Kildare from 2012 to 2024, captained the team for a spell, featured in an International Rules win and was nominated for an All-Star in 2018 but, by Murphy’s reckoning, it was still a career unfulfilled.
“Or did the county underachieve, to not let him achieve?” suggested Murphy. “As someone said to me, in 2028, which is only a couple of years off, it will be 100 years since Kildare won an All-Ireland. And it’ll be 30 years since 1998 when Kildare won the first Leinster in whatever it was, 42 years. Nobody has a God given right to be competitive but I think we should be more competitive than we are.”
As it happened, Murphy’s leftfield bid to jump from a background of playing and coaching to the Kildare GAA chairman’s position was defeated by a 95-85 vote. Mick Mullen from Celbridge got the nod, though Murphy’s point about underachievement still holds good.
Go back to 2013. With Kieran McGeeney in charge of the Kildare U20s, and Murphy managing the minors, both teams won Leinster titles. Kildare have contested six Leinster U20 finals since then, winning four and claiming All-Ireland titles at that grade in 2018 and 2023. Four Kildare players born between 1992 and 1994 – Sean Hurley, Paul Cribbin, Paddy Brophy and Daniel Flynn – were considered outstanding talents and were snapped up by AFL teams.
Senior success never followed for that generation of players, though. Cribbin, like Doyle, called it quits last year. Even allowing for Dublin’s golden era, those players and their peers must have expected more. In the 11 seasons that followed that double of underage successes in 2013, Kildare’s senior team made it to just two All-Ireland quarter-finals, in 2015, when Kerry hit them for 7-16, and 2018 when they lost all three of their games in the Super 8s series.
Under Glenn Ryan for the last three years, Kildare played 37 league and Championship games, winning just 13. In the league, they won five of their 21 games and slid down to Division 3. In Championship terms, they slumped to the Tailteann Cup last year for the first time and were beaten at the quarter-final stage.
“I don’t think I got the best out of these lads,” acknowledged Ryan when he stepped down last summer.
Brian Flanagan took over from Ryan and is the latest figure who will attempt to bring a group of Kildare seniors face to face with their potential. He was the obvious choice given that he managed U20 teams to back-to-back All-Ireland finals in 2022 and 2023, winning the latter.
And he may very well join a small group of Kildare managers to get their hands on silverware this weekend. Kildare will play Offaly in the National League Division 3 final on Sunday but while they’re considerable favourites, you wouldn’t put the mortgage on it.
They had the same billing for their last Division 3 final, in 2016, and Clare won that game. More importantly, Offaly beat a surprisingly tame Kildare by two goals earlier this month when they met in their group.
Kildare also lost to Clare in Round 5 and were fortunate enough that scoring difference leapfrogged them above the Banner and into the top two positions at the end of the campaign.
Still, Flanagan is very much playing the long game with this young Kildare group. He has used 33 players so far in this year’s Division 3 campaign. A dozen of those featured in the 2022 or 2023 All-Ireland U-20 finals. Some featured in both. Harry O’Neill, James McGrath, Callum Bolton, Colm Dalton, Ryan Sinkey and Darragh Swords are among the dozen and have all started multiple games. Another five players – Brian McLoughlin, Aaron Masterson, Mark Dempsey, Jimmy Hyland and Tony Archbold – featured in the 2018 U20 final win.
Flanagan clearly isn’t short on options and deserves the time and space now to pull it all together at the senior level. He still has established stars like Mick O’Grady, David Hyland, Kevin Feely, Darragh Kirwan, Flynn and the in-form Alex Beirne to call upon too. Feely in particular is a terrific talent who must be desperate to achieve some significant success before his time runs out. Locating his best position is an immediate challenge for Flanagan. So is goalscoring. They’ve only scored five this term.
That’s a conundrum previous managers struggled with too despite the clear goalscoring potential of players like Flynn, Kirwan, Hyland and Ben McCormack. Perhaps Flanagan can turn it all around and bring more silverware than just a Division 3 title back to their shiny new St Conleth’s Park stadium in Newbridge. If he does, he will have achieved where many before him have failed.
2025-03-27T18:11:46Z