Carlow went into the game knowing they were already in a league final on a night where Paul Doyle made his 100th competitive appearance for the county.
National Hurling League Division 2A Round 5
Kildare 1-16, Carlow 0-15
‘Hard to know what frame of mind Carlow will approach tonight’s game in’ was the text sent to The Left Wing Back before we left for Hawkfield.
Already promoted to the new Division 1B for next season (the number one priority at the start of the campaign), already assured of place in the Division 2A final, would Carlow give all the fringe players a chance, rest the ‘big guns’ for the pending Leinster Senior Championship?
The team named on Twitter (sorry, X) didn’t answer those questions as the officially named team and the team that lines out is rarely the same. At 7.45 you could say the confirmed starting fifteen gave notice of an 8-7 split, eight regular starters, a strong enough team considering at least four more regulars were ruled out due to injury.
As to the mindset, any semblance of ‘going through the motions’ was quickly eradicated when with just four minutes played Carlow’s Jon Nolan, selected on the gaa.ie team of the week after his magnificent performance against Down the previous Sunday, was issued with a straight red card by Tipperary referee Kevin Jordan.
Now we could rant and rave here about the injustice of the decision but as an advocate of the referee putting the whistle in his pocket and letting the players play this scribe is probably the wrong person to adjudicate on the fairness or otherwise of the sending off. A Carlow follower beside me immediately feared the worse and said so, yet when a friend listening to the match on the radio rang him he was told ’twas a disgrace! At half-time I met a couple of former Carlow hurlers, one reckoned 50-50, couldn’t argue with it too much, the other reckoned it was harsh, very harsh.
What was the it? Jon Nolan went in to tackle a Kildare player close to the stand sideline, his shoulder made contact with the head area of the Lily-white who it could be argued dipped into the tackle. A yellow might have sufficed and normally would so early in a game. But the referee, after consulting with his linesman, brandished the red, the Premier County official probably mindful of the mantra ‘anything to the head is red’.
Whether or which the tone of the game was now set, this was going to be a battle. Normally a red card is seen as a means of bringing a game under control, calm things down. In this case it added an edge that might not have been there to the same extent if the hue had been yellow.
Chris Nolan and Cian Shanahan were issued with yellows shortly after the red, a few other players were ‘spoken to’, yes indeed, it was game on.
Simon Leacy and James Burke had picked off excellent early Kildare points but 14-man Carlow got stuck in at three rat-tat-tat points in the 12th, 14th and 15th minutes courtesy of Chris Nolan (right handed after a long Kevin Mac delivery and a Fiachra Fitzpatrick pop-pass), Mouse (a 25m free after he himself was fouled) and Mouse again (goalkeeper Ciaran Abbey retrieving a ball that came down off the upright, finding Kevin Mac whose delivery reached Chris Nolan who popped to the scorer) gave the red, yellow and green the lead for the first time.
The visitors reached half-time 0-9 to 0-7 to the good and, despite their numerical disadvantage, remained in front until the clock on the electronic scoreboard was flashing 70 when Kildare substitute Jack Sheridan, only a sub due to injury, dispatched a bullet-like 25m shot to the Carlow rigging at the Newbridge down end of the field. While Sheridan applied a fantastic finish, huge credit must go to Simon Leacy for a probing delivery down the ‘second pitch’ wing and James Dolan, another substitute, whose incisive angled run and well-timed pass created the opening.
Ironically that green flag came after the teams had been brought back to even numbers, Kildare’s James Burke second yellow card in the 67th minute earning the Naas clubman a red. Before his departure Burke had been denied a goal when a clever attempt to lob the ‘keeper was brilliantly turned away by the outstretches stick of Ciaran Abbey.
The closest Carlow came to a goal was early in the second half when Fiach O’Toole was denied in a hectic goalmouth scramble while on another occasion the losers might have had claims for a penalty when Chris Nolan was impeded but the match official had already indicated ‘advantage’ on a previous infraction a bit further out.
Even after the Kildare goal Carlow had time to salvage something but instead it was fired-up Kildare who drove on and clever game-management saw goalkeeper Paddy McKenna sneak up the stand side to avail of a cross-field ball and send over a soaring point from play while yet another sub, Daire Guerin, rifled over the clincher from the left wing in the dying seconds.
On a dry night and a good surface considering the recent weather the match provided the small crowd with a hard fought contest, the intensity of the exchanges and the closeness of the scoring adding to the entertainment though this entertainment was tempered by the stop-start nature of the contest or, to quote a neutral, “there were too many frees”.
The same neutral pointed out that a Christy Ring county had just beaten a Liam MacCarthy county. That should be considered a shock of a seismic nature. Remember, though, both were Joe McDonagh last year, one promoted, one relegated. Remember too Kildare were flying this time last year, had hammered Carlow in both the Kehoe Cup and the league, reached the 2A final, an ‘hour’ away from Division 1 hurling.
The disappointment of losing that final to Offaly, followed just a week later by a hammering from Carlow in the opening round of the Joe Mac, saw the wheels come off the Lily White bus. Relegation followed. Now, though, this win, coupled with the win over Kerry the previous week and the draw with Down in Ballycran the game before that has given Kildare hurling people renewed hope and, at the time of writing, a slim chance of a semi-final place.
From a Carlow point of view while this defeat was disappointing, it’s not a disaster given the position on the league table. On the night Paul Doyle, making his 100th competitive appearance with Carlow’s flagship hurlers, was a tower of strength in defence where Kevin McDonald also stood out but the entire defence did well for most of the game given the pressure they were under due to Carlow’s lack of number.
Further afield Chris and Mouse came in for close marking, both picked up heavy knocks too but battled on, scored a couple of trademark points from play. John Doyle, named at full forward for every game in this campaign but who only saw a couple of seconds game time below in Tralee, played the entire hour, scored a good point, was fouled for a scored free and late in the second half was twice, having won sky ball, harshly blown for ‘over-carrying’.
Carlow manager Tom Mullally will take his usual pragmatic stance on the outcome. Not a man to get either too high or too low, he and his management team will assess and get set the challenges ahead…
CARLOW: Ciaran Abbey (Naomh Eoin); Sean Joyce (Mount Leinster Rangers), Paul Doyle (St Mullins), Niall Bolger (Bagenalstown Gaels); Kevin McDonald (Mount Leinster Rangers) 0-2 2f, Jack Kavanagh (St Mullins), Jack McCullagh (Bagenalstown Gaels); Fiach O’Toole (Naomh Bríd), Richie Coady (Mount Leinster Rangers); Jon Nolan (Mount Leinster Rangers), Fiachra Fitzpatrick (Mount Leinster Rangers); Evan Kealy (Mount Leinster Rangers) 0-1; Chris Nolan (Mount Leinster Rangers) 0-2, John Doyle (St Mullins) 0-1, Marty Kavanagh (St Mullins) 0-9 7f. Subs: Paddy Boland (St Mullins) for R Coady (63), Donagh Murphy (Mount Leinster Rangers) for E Kealy (68).
KILDARE: Paddy McKenna (Clane) 0-1; Cian Shanahan (Clane), Seán Christianseen (Clane), Daniel O’Meara (Maynooth); Simon Leacy (Naas) 0-1, Conan Boran (Naas), Rian Boran (Naas); Cathal McCabe (Maynooth) 0-1, Paul Dolan (Éire Óg Corra Choill); Jack Higgins (Éire Óg Corra Choill) 0-1, James Burke (Naas) 0-1, Cian Boran (Naas) 0-1; Muiris Curtin (Moorefield) 0-2, Declan Flaherty (Coill Dubh) 0-2, David Qualter (Maynooth) 0-3 3f. Subs: Daire Guerin (Naas) 0-1 for R Boran (h-t)), Jack Sheridan (Naas) 1-2 0-2 for Paul Dolan (45) Conn Kehoe (Moorefield) for D Qualter (45), Cormac Byrne for S Christianseen (67), James Dolan (Éire Óg Corra Choill) for J Higgins (67)
Referee: Kevin Jordan, Tipperary
