‘Lilies will be licking their lips’ – Brennan
GER Brennan reckons Kildare will be relishing the opportunity to face his Louth side in Sunday week’s Leinster SFC semi-final.
The Lilies picked up their first victory in either league or championship football this season when seeing off Wicklow by the minimum in the curtain-raiser to Louth’s success against Wexford.
And given the struggles his own players had in terms of performance, the Dublin-native expects a difficult assignment in the last four.
“Kildare are going to be licking their lips at the opportunity to enact revenge on Louth after the last league game, where there was just three points in it,” said Brennan.
“You’d expect a very close game in Croke Park but it has all the ingredients to be a cracking semi-final.
“We’re going to have to review the build-up to the Wexford game because it was a bit flat. Sometimes that can happen. I’ve played in games where you’re going in as a favourite and expected to win but the juices aren’t always flowing when the ball is thrown in. I don’t think they were flowing enough for us.
“It was just a bit of a flat, lethargic performance for large parts and the lads know there is a lot more in them and that we can’t go out like that at Croke Park in two weeks’ time.
“I would like us to be far more aggressive in our tackling; to step up and not let the opposition play or get their hands on the ball to get into the game. I would use the word adventurous where you’re closing the gap between you and the ball-carrier, and also cutting off the ball-carrier’s options too. When we do that, we’re quite effective, but we were just passive for a large part here and that’s a mindset thing.”
Louth did manage another four goals, bringing their tally of majors to 10 in three matches, which was a pleasing aspect, he conceded.
“Championship is about winning. Was it pretty? It wasn’t, but there were collective moments of very impressive attack play which resulted in the two penalties and the goals by Ciarán Downey from play.
“Overall, you’d be disappointed with large parts of our play. Wexford outscored us by 15 scores to 4-10 and we dropped back quite a bit defensively, allowing them to build up a head of steam.
“You’re looking at what’s in front of you and trying to cut your cloth to measure. The big picture is in trying to progress towards Division 1 status and that overly structured play doesn’t cut it in Division 1.
“It certainly gets you up from Division 4 to 2 and makes you competitive there but if it can be evolved towards man-on-man with and without the ball, that’s where you’d like to get to. What you saw through the National League was to get fellas comfortable in playing w hat they see in front of them.”
Duly, in a bid to get the team functioning better, Brennan has withdrawn Downey from a forward role to midfield, from where he delivered two excellently-finished goals on Sunday.
“He showed his bit of class, which has nothing got to do with me. It’s just what he has.
“You’re looking at teams with low block defences and how you unpick that lock. Because of Ciarán’s football brain, he has the ability to see passes. You’re looking to get him on the ball and orchestrate those attacks.
“He was probably a bit deep in the first half and we’d like him further up the pitch, but that’s probably something across the whole team where we were all a bit deep.”