Sweeney takes delight in historic win over old foes Meath as Kildare make perfect start to the league

Kildare selector Ronan Sweeney looked at the match programme from Sunday's league opener against Meath and was reminded of some good days and some not so good days against their old rivals in the National League.

In Sweeney's playing days with the county -dating from 2000 to 2013- Kildare managed just two wins from six games, with one of those coming in Páirc Tailteann, a notoriously tough place for Kildare teams to come. On further examination of the results in the league over the last 92 years, Kildare had never enjoyed such a large winning margin, and that is something that was of great satisfaction to the Moorefield man.

"I was just looking through the programme and a lot of good and bad memories came to mind reading the scorelines, but look it, I’ve never been down here and got a result like that in my time and I don’t remember even before that. But, you know, it’s brilliant. It’s very satisfying to get a start like that because we’ve put a huge amount of work in over the last few months preparing for the league and it’s good to see the lads getting the reward," he told KildareNow after the game.

While Kildare enjoyed a healthy advantage throughout -never dropping below five points after the ninth minute- but they did look like they were on the ropes as the game teetered towards the half-time break. Meath scored five points to Kildare's one in the 10 minutes before Ciaran Branagan blew the whistle to signal the interval, and Sweeney and the Kildare management team were delighted to get them in to regroup.

They always were going to[come back], it’s Meath we’re talking about and probably the half-time whistle suited us because we could just regroup. There was certainly no panic because for the majority of the half I thought we were by far the better team. We were composed, we were cutting them open and using the ball well. It was just the last 10 we were getting caught on our own kickouts, so it was good to get the half-time whistle and get into the dressing room to regroup and refocus and even just to win the throw up there at the start of the second half set the tone a little bit.

Previous performances from Kildare would have rendered fans a little worried going into the turnaround as Kildare have suffered some serious wobbles when holding commanding leads over the last year or so, but they steadied the ship well and Niall Kelly's 48th minute goal eventually put enough daylight between the sides to ensure the game was never in doubt.

"Absolutely, yeah," said Sweeney when asked if he was slightly edgy towards the end of the first half.

"Because in the couple of games we’ve had so far and last year, particularly in the championship, we’ve got leads in games and teams came at us and we wilted a small bit, the same a couple of weeks ago against Dublin. So it was satisfying to be able to just hold our composure, keep the ball, to not give it away, no unforced turnovers- well not as many anyway. That was good, but there’s still a lot to work on.

"It was only the first game and there’s plenty to work on. We only conceded 0-16, probably should have scored a bit more. We still had a lot chances that should have been put away, but the great thing is that we’re creating a huge amount of chances this year which is brilliant. It’s exciting football, I think, that Kildare are playing and having a go and trying to do the right thing and having a go the whole time. I just hope it continues now," concluded Sweeney.

They go into next week's clash with Cork high on confidence after securing an impressive win over old foes, and with Galway, Clare, Derry and next week's opponents all drawing on Sunday, Kildare could make some serious strides in Division 2 if they beat the Rebels next week.