Two Mile boss wary of Kilcummin

TWO Mile House manager, Niall Browne, is if nothing else, a pragmatist. When asked how being the underdogs for Sunday’s clash with Kilcummin he quickly replies:

“Two Mile House have been underdogs since its foundation in 1885.”

And how right he is, although for most of the 2018 season they have gone into games very firmly fancied, but what the manager really meant was that for years, The House have been swimming against the tide, on the outskirts of Naas; struggling for numbers for most of their life.

In that regard Browne acknowledges that in 2017 The House won the Minor B title; another major achievement and one he says that was helped by a few lads who were originally from the county town.

“Naas are bursting at the seams with players at present,” he said last week; and if the likes of us and indeed Eadestown can get the odd player here and there who would have a better opportunity of getting football then we will welcome them withopenarms.

“Some of our winning minors could not get football with Naas so they threw in their lot with us and they have flourished ever since, but overall everything is going good with Two Mile House and what a great achievement it would be if we could reach another All Ireland final.”

Niall Browne readily admits that he has seen Sunday’s opposition in action on two occasions; in the Munster final and again in the East Kerry final when they got a bit of pasting from Dr Crokes.

“They are a very formidable side; hugely experienced; they have long been in the senior set-up in Kerry, dropped to intermediate for just one season and are not back in the senior ranks again.”

Browne added that “club football is exceptionally strong in Kerry as it has been down the years; a lot of the Kilcummin boys would have played with the divisional side of East Kerry and that shows just how decent they are; without a doubt they will be the best side we have met, possibly ever, but we are in the semi final; we are not there to make up the numbers; we know we have a big task but we are injury free; fit, focused and really looking forward to the game.”

And on the injury front Niall says they have put a lot of work into keeping players injury free this year and points out that Glen Lee has done an amount of work in this regard over the past 12 months or so.

“Glen is involved with the second team, as well as the first but he has really done great work on our fitness and especially on keeping the lads as injury free as is possible.”

The manager acknowledged that it is an honour and a privilege to be not alone representing Two Mile House but “we are representing the entire county of Kildare and indeed the entire province of Leinster and that is a great place to be,” he says.

“Football in Kildare is in a good place at the minute; the All Ireland success of the Under 20s was a massive win and a massive boost for all of the county and we will be hoping to build on that; we have an injury free panel; have a great mix of young and very experienced players who have played at the top level so while going in as the underdogs we are going into this game more than hopeful and that’s for sure.”

The manager admitted that regardless of the level of football a team is at, a semi-final can be a very traumatic experience.

“Losing a semi-final is the worse possible place to go out of any competition so we will be going to Limerick on Sunday in the full knowledge that if we play as we can, and maybe even a bit better, we won’t be too far away and that is for sure.”