'Meath are probably two years ahead of us' Flanagan acknowledges gulf between Kildare and The Royals

They won the midfield battle and that gave them the platform to kick on, they did that, but we struggled in a lot of areas tonight but yes, overall, very disappointing.

The words of Kildare manager, Brian Flanagan, following his side's 14-point defeat at the hands of Meath in their Allianz Football League Division 1 meeting at Cedral St Conleth's Park, Newbridge.

The manager added “Meath are probably two years ahead of us (physicality-wise) and we knew that but I don't want to make too many excuses here, we still under-performed, based on what we should be doing and what we should be bringing to the game and what we intended to do but we are a young side, our average age is very, very young. Out-muscled and in terms of physicality against a side like Meath who were All-Ireland semi-finalists last year and they have been operating at Division 2 level for a number of years; they won The Tailteann Cup two years before we did but it is not any shock to the system and I still thought we could have brought more to it; that is an area we are going to have to work on, and we certainly will be over the next few months and the next few years to get to that level.”

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The manager said that Kildare never got into any flow, never got a foothold in the match and to be honest they (Meath) dictated from start to finish.

Flanagan admitted that confidence has taken a hit, he said “but that is part of life, part of the development of a good team that you are going to have, unfortunately, really tough days like today, tough periods in a year and that is where we are at. We accept it, the players accept it, we are in a fight now and we just have to be up for the fight. I still believe our destination is in our own hands, we have two games to play, four points on offer and we just have to take each one on its merits now.”