Glenn Ryan reacts as Kildare slump to draw with Sligo

“It is not the way we would have trained to try and break down that defence; there were very few runners off-the-ball, the ball was going around in a horse-shoe but not in a controlled manner, I would say, we had far too few shots from attacks that we had which means we gave the ball away and we had turn-overs; the first half we had a stiff enough breeze and we knew at half time we had put ourselves in a position to be facing a real, real battle.”

The words of Kildare manager, Glenn Ryan, following his side's extremely disappointing display and result that saw the home side kick the final three points in time added on to draw the opening game in Round 1 of the revamped All-Ireland Football series on Sunday.

“It (the performance) should not be a lack of confidence, from a game management perspective it is not what it should be; it is not the first time we have seen that type of scenario, it is something we look a lot of in training but the wrong decisions came at the wrong time and after putting ourselves in a winning position we should have been capable of seeing the game out.”

The manager seemed somewhat perplexed with the performance to say the very least.

“Very frustrating and very disappointing without our efforts and the outcome of the game; I thought we prepared well, we were really at the pitch we wanted to be to come here; we got what we expected from Sligo, probably did not get what we expected from ourselves” said the Round Towers man.

Asked how he felt the result would impact on the group as a while, Ryan replied: “If you finished third in the group, you'd be disappointed you didn't finish second and if you finish second you'd be disappointed you didn't finish top, but we can still top the group and that is our aim; and I still believe we are good enough to have that ambition but jeepers we have to improve, there is no doubt about that.”

Meanwhile Sligo boss, Tony McEntee was not hiding his joy of having gained a point, especially when trailing by three points with just three minutes of normal time remaining the manager said the “result was massive for us and also the great character that lay behind it.”

Looking ahead to the Roscommon game he said “to beat them (Roscommon) in Hyde Park is going to be a bit of stretch, let's be honest, and Dublin, wherever that ends up being. So I think what we're looking at here is probably a score difference issue between ourselves and Kildare.”