'When we needed a big score we got it' - Glenn Ryan reacts to Kildare win over Wicklow

Any championship game you play the most important thing is to get a win out of it; we left ourselves in areas we know we can improve upon and we will have to improve fairly quick.

The words of Kildare manager, Glenn Ryan, following his side's ten point win over Wicklow in the quarter-final of the Leinster Senior Football Championship at Netwatch Cullen Park on Sunday, a wins that sets-up a semi-final date with last season's finalists Dublin, a game The Dubs won very convincingly.

The manager said it was momentum stopper for us sometimes; sometimes we made mistakes that halted out momentum but when we needed to get a big score I really thought the fellas recognised that; we injected more pace and power into it and that is where and how we created the goal chance.”

Asked about the impressive impact Kildare got when fresh legs were introduced, the Round Towers man said simply “yes, but that is what you expect, if you are coming into (the game) you are coming in to make an impact not to see the game out; every player is important and at the level we want to play at, the level of players that we have it is almost and very hard to leave fellas off and the level of football they are playing at so, yes, when they come in we expect them to make an impact and they all did very well.”

While he was reminded that Kildare have not scored too many goals this season but this was a really good goal, the former centre back immediately said Kerry did not score any goals last night (Saturday) quickly adding “ye, Paddy (Woodgate) did very well; Paddy is probably the hardest worker that we have, both on the pitch and off it, he worked hard for his goal today but it was a great build-up and a lot of the elements of play that we look for in a game to create the opportunity and that was very pleasing.”

While acknowledging that three players were making their championship debut on the day, Glenn agreed but said that most of them have got plenty of action in the League, adding “it should be a seamless transition but we are very pleased with them all.”

Asked about Dublin next week in the semi-final the manager said “we would like to think that we started preparing for Dublin this year at half-time in the Leinster final last year; we have put an awful lot of work into this to get ourselves right and we still feel there is a lot more in us, a lot of improvement and obviously playing Dublin we will have to improve.”