Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
SMACK TO BASICS
My boys have proved they Cian respond in the face of adversity
CIAN O’NEILL called on his Kildare players to turn the other cheek after their second ‘almighty smack in the face’ of the summer.
The Lilies are licking their wounds again after starting the Super 8s with a narrow loss, two months on from crashing out of the Leinster championship to Carlow.
Losing an arm-wrestle to Monaghan hardly qualifies as a disaster like the Carlow setback.
But boss O’neill admitted the defeat stung all the same and his side now have to beat Galway in Newbridge next Sunday and then take care of Kerry in Killarney.
O’neill said: “Sometimes it takes an almighty smack in the face – or a kick In the ass, which is what we got in Tullamore that time against Carlow – to reboot you.
“I think when the players look back on their performance today, based on the standards they’ve set for themselves in recent weeks, they’ll be disappointed.
“They’ll see where the errors were and they’ll do their best to correct those in the next seven days.
“Obviously you would have had great confidence coming into today of leaving with the two points.
“But ultimately you were still going to have to beat Galway in Newbridge next weekend to see where you were at, and then travel down to Killarney.
“It actually doesn’t change anything for us.
“It just makes it a bit more difficult because now we’re relying on other results whereas if you carry the victory into next weekend and put in a big performance there, well then you’re the architect of your own destiny.
“But maybe this is the pressure situation we need to go and say, ‘Listen, this is it now, we’re either going in one direction or the other next Sunday in Newbridge’.”
It’s a whopping 11 losses for Kildare now in their last 12 League and Championship games at Croke Park.
But O’neill rubbished talk of a Headquarters hoodoo and said the poor handling and errors his side committed were more down to tiredness.
They had a great start with a sixth minute wonder goal from Daniel Flynn putting them 1-1 to 0-2 clear.
But the Farney were back level after 11 minutes, thanks in part to two points from top scorer Conor Mcmanus.
And the Ulster men never trailed for the rest of the game, despite Kildare drawing level three times in the secondhalf.
Monaghan led 0-10 to 1-5 at the break yet while they scored just one point between half-time and the 57th minute, they came good when it mattered.
It was level late on before Vinny Corey, Mcmanus and Rory Beggan all stepped up to split the posts and register the vital win.