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Kildare make their advantage count after a tumultuous week
CIAN O’NEILL hailed the role of GAA’s new Director General Tom Ryan in resolving last week’s fixture saga.
Kildare took full advantage of playing at St Conleth’s Park to record a stunning win over Mayo but, contradicting official GAA claims that the U-turn had been prompted by ungraded match traffic and stewarding plans, O’Neill pointed to the involvement of Ryan as being the tipping point. ‘I know he wasn’t front and centre,
but I’m pretty confident in my own head that the intervention of Tom Ryan was critical to this being resolved the way it was.
‘I don’t know the man, never met the man, but I definitely know he’s a reasonable man and I think what happened with the county board working really hard behind the scenes with the GAA, it definitely wouldn’t have happened without his intervention or his recommendation,’ said O’Neill, who downplayed the significance the saga had on inspiring his team.
‘This wouldn’t have happened unless the players were 100 per cent sure that they were not rolling over on it. ‘If the players weren’t on board this never would have happened because they are the most important stakeholders in all of this. ‘The bottom line is we were not going to play that match anywhere but here tonight, end of story, simply because that’s what the rule stated. We were entitled to it, we f ***** g earned it. I think it contributed to the atmosphere. The fans were amazing.
‘We really heard them because we knew Mayo were going to be loud. What contributed to the result was hard work, resilience and character. It was leadership too, things that people doubted us on in the past,’ added O’Neill, who would not be drawn on whether Kildare, in the event of reaching the Super 8s, will demand that their home game is played in Newbridge.
‘That is irrelevant to me in my job as manager. That is country board and central council stuff. We are back out in seven days’ time and if our mind is not 100 per cent on that then our season will end in seven days’ time,’ he said.
Meanwhile, Mayo manager Stephen Rochford confirmed he would review his position but insisted that was standard practice.
‘We will, but we have two years left on our term and we don’t want anyone reading into that either way. It is just reflection which is the same if we had gone to the All-Ireland final.’