Preview: Big ask as Kildare Ladies head West to tackle Mayo

Out of the frying pan and into the fire. The Kildare Ladies get their All-Ireland Senior Football Championship campaign started away to Mayo on June 15.

The Lilies came third out of the Leinster Senior Championship quartet. They finished behind Dublin and Meath and now find themselves in with the All-Ireland champions once again for their other Group 4 game in the All-Ireland series.

First up though is the aforementioned Mayo and last year’s All-Ireland semi-finalists are no easy prospect either as Kildare find themselves lumped in with two of 2023’s final four.

From perhaps the toughest province into undoubtedly the hardest All-Ireland group, the Kildare Ladies have it all to do to progress past this stage, but captain Grace Clifford remains excited by what is ahead.

“Oh yeah, it’s not easy,” she laughed, unphased by the prospect.

“It’s really exciting, this is what it's about. We can talk about the ‘group of death’ or whatever, but if you are not training since November to be playing against the best and challenging yourself against the best then you are kind of wasting your time. You’re just being an inter-county footballer to get the gear. And it's not worth that.”

Clifford added, “I am really excited for Mayo and I think the group are really excited to go to Mayo. Up there on a Saturday in June, that is what Championship football is all about. The Mayo fans will be up for it and hopefully we’ll get a Kildare crowd across for it too. Thankfully the games are all being live-streamed now too.”

It was an incredible start to Kildare’s 2024 with a Division 2 title win meaning Diane O’Hora’s side have achieved back-to-back promotions since she took over.

There was little time to bask in the glory of adding another trophy to their recent collection with The Lilies having just one week off before three consecutive weeks of provincial action.

“The Leinster Championship was so quick and over before you even knew it. We were disappointed because we felt we didn’t get the chance to show what we are about,” Clifford said.

“I felt disheartened about Leinster and then you have to bring yourself back with a reality check that we won Division 2 and we’ll be in Division 1 next year, that’s crazy.”

After a hectic schedule, the Kildare ladies will have had six weeks between their 3-3 to 0-10 win over Laois and the Mayo clash. The break will hopefully have facilitated the return of many key figures like Róisín Byrne and Aoife Clifford, who missed most or all of the Leinster Championship through injury.

“We needed it (the break). We had the league, won and that was fantastic. But it was pretty quickly into Leinster and then a fairly big fall from grace playing against Dublin. It was a really big welcome to the Senior Championship there and it took the wind out of our sails a little bit,” (Grace) Clifford said.

“I think a flip of the fixtures might have done us the world of good. We showed glimpses of a better performance against Meath and then much better against Laois. I think we are on an upward trajectory and the break has given us a chance. Everything for us now is Mayo.”

It is hard to get a complete read on Kildare at this level just yet. The Dublin game was the toughest of welcomes back to Senior football as the All-Ireland champs put The Lilies to the sword following some early Kildare errors.

It was a game that was over before it even began in truth, but as the weeks passed and Dublin’s unrelenting superiority was further demonstrated, it became clear that they may be clear of the entire pack.

Meath were next on the cards and in truth this is where we began to see what this team is capable of at Senior level.

A tight and tense game early on was soon gone the way of the week before when Kildare conceded 1-5 in a mistake-laden 10 minutes.

The Lilies came up short, but recovered well and outscored the home side 0-7 to 0-3 in the second half.

The best part about the game for Kildare was that this 60 minutes or so of football looked like two Senior teams going toe-to-toe.

There is no sense in revising what could have been without the mistakes, but there was plenty of value in seeing that this team is not out of their depth at this level of football.

“It felt like that (it was a close game) on the pitch, bar a couple of errors and mistakes that pulled them away from us,” Clifford recalled.

“But we definitely weren’t on the pitch wondering how we could put out this fire. Against Dublin you were going, these are just really, really good. We had moments and glimpses in the second half, but they are great and their subs are really good too. This is their level.

“As that (Meath) game went on we grew into the performance and that second-guessing ourselves stopped. That was the positive side of it and we are really looking forward to Mayo now.”

It was a mixed bag for Mayo in Division 1 to start off their year. Three wins, three losses and a draw is about as middling as you can get. Mayo beat the three teams below them, lost to three of the four above and got perhaps their most impressive result in a low-scoring draw with Kerry.

The standout game from a Kildare point of interest was their encounter with Dublin in Ballina, where they lost 2-15 to 2-8.

Relatively decisive on paper, but the home side led that game 2-7 to 0-4 at half-time and while The Dubs produced in the second half, there is something to be said for having had them on the ropes.

The Mayo goals came from unsettling the Dublin backline with players up the field, winning a short kick-out that went astray and a penalty.

The learnings of that game will certainly have informed Diane O’Hora’s preparation to this point as she faces her home county and The Dubs in quick succession.

Should Kildare try and catch The Dubs on the hop and then sit back from there?

And what can they learn from their watching role for round one of the Senior Championship When Dublin faced Mayo in Group 4’s opener?

It is a tough group against brilliant opposition, but as the captain said herself, this is what it is all about.

These are exciting times ahead for Kildare fans as the Ladies tackle the All-Ireland Senior Football Champion-

ship on June 15.