Kildare's must-win survival clash with Louth to be broadcast on TG4

Kildare welcome Louth to Cedral St Conleth's Park for a 1:15pm throw-in on Sunday, March 22 in the final round of Allianz Football League Division 2.

The game will be broadcast live on TG4 and is a must win fixture for Brian Flanagan's team if they are to remain in the second tier. The Lilies have to topple third place Louth and hope that Derry will beat Cavan to push the latter into the dreaded bottom two places.

Kildare have little to no form headed into this vital encounter with four losses on the bounce and, at the very least, three really poor performances in succession too. The nature of The Lilies' defeats to Cavan, Meath and Cork are the biggest worry with losses in an ultra-competitive Division 2 par for the course at this stage in this squads development. With that said, relegation would be a major setback in that particular evolution.

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Much has been made of the level of turnover in the Kildare squad and the drop in the average age overall, but the timid nature of their first half efforts against Cork still left plenty to be desired. Youth and inexperience are scarcely justifications for conceding eight opening half two-pointers which were converted with relative ease.

In stark contrast, Louth are on a three-game winning streak after their one-point mid-campaign defeat to Meath. The Wee County have since beaten Tyrone (by five), Cavan (by 10) and Derry (by four).

It doesn't look promising on paper for The Lilies but this game won't be played on paper either and the home side will be hoping support in Newbridge can spur them on to a heroic victory in their search for survival.