New Kildare Ladies boss, Pat O'Sullivan sets out his plans

Not long after opting not to continue with his native Waterford, Pat Sullivan got a call from the Kildare LGFA Executive Board to replace departing ladies manager Diane O’Hora. One meeting later and he was the new Lilywhite ladies boss.

“When I met them the first night I was actually blown away with their drive, their passion and what they wanted to do for Kildare. Then the success that they’d had at underrage over for the last three years, I actually struggled to say no to the job,” Sullivan said.

“It is something that I am very driven by, to have the right support from behind me and the players can only improve when they have the right structures and it looks like they have it here.”

Sullivan’s Waterford held their own in Division 1 in 2024, reached an All-Ireland quarter-final, losing out to Cork. An equivalent season in 2025 with Kildare would certainly represent success.

“There are great foundations here. Diane and the past management team did a superb job. It’s like building a house. The house isn’t built at the moment, but the foundations are good. What will be tested now is what is above ground, we’re in Division 1 now and at the top table at senior. If you look back over the data from last year it has been a successful year, but our last Senior Championship game was against a Laois team that are gone down now and we needed the last kick of the game to stay up,” Sullivan explained.

“I am looking forward to the challenge, but I am under no illusions on what we have as well. The ability is there, the raw material is there. It is up to us to put a high performance set-up in place for them to improve in that area and that is what we’ll do.”

Uncertainty surrounds the Kildare squad for 2025 and curiosity is specific to senior members of last year’s Lilies team, particularly concerning who will stay on under Sullivan. The new boss has also made it clear that he has no desire to beg anyone to remain in the Kildare panel for next year.

He said, “We’ll go through the process of all the one-on-one’s with the player’s. Everybody on the panel last year will be invited back in and we’ll look at the minor players from 2022, ‘23 and ‘24 that are not here and make sure we get them in as well.

We’ll look at players that are in the club championship that may have stepped away for different reasons over the last couple of years and bring everyone into the mix.

“The big picture here is getting the strongest ability in firstly and the strongest players that want to play for the county. It is not about being involved and it is a chore, you should be very proud to play for Kildare.”

The new boss was also questioned on his style and whether The Lilies can carry much of their previously expressive style into their 2025 campaign.

“The style of play? You can see from the club championship that there is an open brand of play. That’s lovely, but if you are playing Division 1 football, you have to have a compact defence and shut up the middle to make sure you don’t get opened up.

If you can, you have a great base, so for us it is about getting that really good base and then getting our offensive side as we got through then,” Sullivan said.

“If I look back to my time in Waterford when I got involved in 2015, probably similar to what we are facing here. You have a young crew after winning at underrage, you also have an experienced bunch who have also had a lot of losses as well. You want to mix both of them together.”

Kildare undeniably struggled in last year’s return to Senior Championship football, but after a long march towards Division 2 glory, it was always going to be hard to maintain momentum.

“Division 2 was there to be taken last year so they were probably seasoned for the league and after that you peter off because you can’t keep a full season going. We’ll probably be playing at about 70-80% of our actual capability because we’ll have gone through a hard programme and that is what you need to be in Division 1,” Sullivan explained.

“More importantly, we need to learn and give players the opportunity to be exposed to Division 1, but it is a business and we need to keep open and stay in Division 1 too.”

Integrating youth appears to be at the forefront of the new manager's mind. A hardly surprising fact given Kildare’s excellent showings at minor level over the last three years under manager Darren Kendrick.

“We need to expose these young players that haven’t played in Division 1 to it, to make sure when we get to the Championship we have a very strong panel. If you look at the league that is going to face us, I think we have six games in seven weeks so if you get injured in the first week, there is a high chance you could win three quarters of the league,” Sullivan said.

“I need to have the next player up and the next player up again, that will be the motto from here. Then when we get to the Championship, hopefully we have a good squad of 30 that has been exposed to high-level football.”

So what would represent a job well done for the Waterford native?

Sullivan explained, “Success to me would be making sure that Kildare look in 2025 like a high-performance team. A team that everybody looks at and fears to play, even more importantly that in 2025 that we have Senior status. 2026, that we are a team that is really going after it and keeping Division 1 status.”

“We’ll be looking at Meath and Dublin, that is what we are facing. We are looking forward to that, but we can’t be expecting just to stay there. We want to lock down a future here.

“We got up in 2015 in Waterford and we stayed, that is why we reached quarter-finals because we are used to being here. It can’t be this thing of it being great to stay up, you need to have Meath looking over there shoulder next year thinking ‘I am worried about Kildare’, that is what we need.”