'We weren't good enough' Flanagan puts it bluntly after dire Kildare performance

It took Kildare manager, Brian Flanagan, some time to emerge from, no doubt, a shocked dressing room following The Lilies three point defeat at the hands of Cavan at Kingspan Breffni on Sunday afternoon.

“It is the performance, first and foremost” said the Johnstownbridge man, adding “we were flat, flat from start to finish in that game, a bit like the second half last week (against Derry) a lot of mistakes, a lot of balls hand-passed away, a lot on unforced errors a lot of balls kicked away, lost in contact and a lot of balls lost in contact along with a lot of missed opportunities, scoring just 13 points with the new rules will not win a game, yeah, very disappointed all round.”

Asked if could he put his finger on the performance, or lack of it, the manager replied that “every team in the national football league seems to have one off day, where things just don't run for you, whether that is off kick-outs, off possessions, and all that and we are hoping this is a one-off for us, one of those days you can't explain, you look back on the week and you say preparation went quiet well, training went well, but coming down here to Breffni, conditions were tough but I won't use that as an excuse Cavan were very, very motivated, they were in a position to win against Meath, they didn't; last week for an hour they were very competitive against Tyrone and today they stayed in it for the seventy plus minutes and they deserved their win but it is hard to explain from our side.”

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The manager said that Cavan went through a period for some 15 minutes when they dominated, Gearoid McKiernan was catching clean or breaking to their advantage and we just couldn't get hands on ball, we began to turn that in the last 10 or 15 minutes, picked up, got one or two on the longs but that period definitely cost when you should have been kicking on from 0-8 to 0-5 but all of a sudden we were chasing.”

On a few referee decisions the manager admitted that there were a couple of things that frustrated us today, trying to get an explanation and clarity from the sideline is difficulty, we have had to deal with other things around officials but that is just the nature of it but that didn't cost us the game. Ultimately we have to look at our own performance, we weren't good enough, we weren't at it today and we have to make sure that we are in six days time for Meath.”