O'Flaherty: Young guns can drive Lilies 'to Leinster final and beyond'

Liam Kelly

EOGHAN O'Flaherty is preparing for his eighth season in the Kildare jersey, but he believes that Jason Ryan's young guns will push the older players hard for places in the team.

The key theme for O'Flaherty is 'no complacency' as Kildare seek to build solid foundations for a strong challenge in the 2015 Championship.

Last January Kildare retained the O'Byrne Cup, and followed that by starting their Division 1 campaign promisingly, only to eventually slump to relegation.

In the Championship, they lost the Leinster semi-final to Meath. From there they rallied and came agonisingly close to an All-Ireland quarter-finals place, only to lose to Monaghan in a dramatic qualifier at Croke Park after extra-time.

Indeed, O'Flaherty's late point in the last minute of normal time almost saw the Lilies safely through against Monaghan, but an equaliser from a free by Conor McManus saved the Farney men, who went on to win the match.

Kildare's 2014 campaign ended in fire and fury and drama that night but no effort will be spared in the quest for improvement.

Blooded

Reflecting on the season, O'Flaherty said: "We came out on the wrong side of a great game against Monaghan. We probably had a good chance to beat them in injury-time but didn't, unfortunately.

"From a squad point of view, we blooded a number of players, five or six of them, who played Championship for the first time and held their own.

"They're hopefully going to improve this year, and a lot of the senior players are probably going to have to step it up again. We probably didn't do ourselves justice this year.

"We've a relatively young side as well. There's a number of players on the panel now who hopefully might stake their claim and push everyone for places.

"There's a group of around 30 players, all lads of a good level who are trying to make the team and make an impact.

"We'd hope to have a good League, build on that in the summer and see where that takes us, hopefully to a Leinster final and beyond."

Kildare's U-21 Leinster win in 2013 was a positive indicator of emerging young talent.

Time and experience are now needed to blend the underage talent into the senior set-up.

"Sometimes we have high expectations in Kildare. You have to give lads a chance to adjust to a senior inter-county environment.

"They did well last year and they're only going to be better this year. I'm looking forward to seeing how they develop," he said.