PREVIEW: Feely backs Lilies to put league form behind them ahead of Championship clash with Laois

Speaking at the launch of the 2026 Leinster Championship, Kildare captain Kevin Feely was ready to look forward to summer football but didn’t shy away from The Lilies’ shortcomings to that point which have halted the positive sentiment about what is being built for the future.

“We're really disappointed. We thought we had more than enough to stay in Division 2 this year, off the back of last year and off the back of a good start to the league, so it's really disappointing to be in the position we're in now,” Feely said. “I think that the middle part of the league, the last 20 minutes of the Derry match and then the really, really disappointing performance against Cavan just seemed to knock the confidence of the group big time, and, with it being such a young group, confidence can be fragile with that age group.”

CONFIDENCE

There was an uptick in performance when everything was on the line against Louth but Kildare, in the aforementioned middle of the season, looked devoid of any belief and under severe pressure well before things had even truly gone awry.

Feely added, “We were so high on confidence one week and, it goes to show you how young the group is, the confidence plummeted so quickly and probably impacted us for two or three games more than it should have, so that was really disappointing.

“The green shoots I suppose are the second half performance against Cork and a much better performance against Louth than what we had been showing, although it's still the same frustrations in terms of conversion which was a common thing all through the league, but in terms of being competitive, winning our own ball, that kind of thing, it was much better in the second half against Cork and the Louth game, so we'd like to think that that's a foundation to build on and turn things around coming into Championship.”

LEAGUE DEFEATS

The AFL queries continued with questions about young players and the absence of years of high-level strength and conditioning compared to a team like Meath, who overran Kildare on home soil. While the Athy man acknowledged that gap, he said there were plenty more improvements to be made in games against top sides like The Royals.

He explained, “We weren't competitive for a lot of reasons, their conditioning in the league versus us was maybe one of them, but there were other tactical things and work-rate issues in that game that would need to be addressed before looking at it in S&C wise I think.”

After a comprehensive look at a league campaign to forget, Feely concluded the league post-mortem and said: “It's certainly not the straight line trajectory that we were hoping to go on. It's a bigger bump in the road than we wanted 100%, but the road to success is never easy and it's very rarely in a straight line, and next year we’ll have to think about that and work on that, but this year is very much alive and we can rescue it very easily with a good Championship and a good Leinster campaign, so there's a big impetus on us now going into our training camp this week and switch that mindset to focus on the present and what's important for the Leinster Championship.”

LEINSTER CHAMPIONSHIP

Kildare will face Laois on Sunday, April 19 in Cedral St Conleth's Park to get their 2026 Leinster Championship under way. Following a sensible handling of league affairs, the Kildare captain was asked about the fickle nature of sporting coverage and fandom as an exciting and perhaps complexion-changing few weeks beckon.

Two wins and you are the best thing since sliced bread again?

“Yeah, it is fickle,” Feely replied. “The bare facts of it are hard to look at with relegation and having to work back to Sam Maguire next year, but, as you said, if we were able to produce two massive performances now and get to the Leinster final, everyone would be back on board again and it completely alters the perspective on the season, so there'll be no issue re-motivating lads for that.”

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TURNING THINGS AROUND

Moving from the internal to the external, the Leinster Championship has no clear frontrunner again this year with last year’s finalists Louth and Meath looking strong while Dublin were absent from the Championship launch as they awaited news on their manager’s then looming suspension for his involvement in a half-time brawl against Galway.

Feely added, “It's exciting, it's wide open, all you have to do is think about that and it instantly motivates you to want to do well in it. Even last year, being so close to Louth and seeing them going on and doing it as well, that stokes the fires for this year and we can reflect back on that and use it to motivate ourselves as well. But yeah, it's wide open and we hope to be in the running for it.”

The Athy man was also quick to pour cold water on any concerns over league shortcomings and low confidence bleeding into the summer. He said, “If there were people who were under a little bit of pressure that way, kind of mental fatigue or anything like that, that's what these next two or three weeks are about. Switching that mindset, rebuilding confidence through work done on the training pitch and we have a great opportunity to do that now.”

KICK-OUTS

One hot button issue the Kildare captain was happy to give insight on was kick-outs, which have quickly become one of the most important aspects of any GAA team’s plan in 2026 with the new FRC rules facilitating 30-40 aerial contests per game from those restarts. Kildare captain Kevin Feely has been one of the best fielders in the country for several years and he has had his say on how things have changed since he began fetching possession in lár na páirce.

“It's completely different. It's not even similar to what it was when I started, it's a different kind of game,” Feely said. “So obviously with the old rules, the recent old rules, you're maybe contesting three or four long kick-outs a game and now it's closer to 30-40, I love it. We have a lot of lads on the panel that absolutely love that side of things.

“But it's way harder to win your own kick-out now than it used to be and that's kind of forced teams and coaches to come up with a lot more innovative ways of winning your own ball. Watching other games and within our own games you're seeing so many different tactics being used to try and secure primary possession and particularly against good big zonal presses which make it really, really difficult.”

MIDFIELD ROLE

The restart from the goalkeeper has been a sore point for Kildare this year with Feely’s injury absence leaving a major gap in aerial strength in the middle of the field for Kildare. The Athy man is confident that Kildare players relish the number of contests, but they are yet to turn that motivation into a convincing presence in midfield.

At a time when control is priority number one across many major sports, the 50:50 nature of a high ball into the sky has become something of a headache for coaches across the country.

Feely added, “Certainly last year a lot of coaches would have struggled with that lack of control that was happening, but I think everyone has accepted that it's going to be very difficult to be that in control of your own kickout now and they've adjusted the expected numbers of how many kickouts you're going to win now and usually if you're winning 55 or 60% plus of your own ball that's an excellent starting point.

“You just want to make sure it doesn't get below the 50% mark and once you're in that zone you’re generally going to be okay.”

NEW RULES

This transition in the rules has also created other issues with pockets of the pitch looking something akin to a ruck when the ball is floated into the air from the goalkeeper with the likes of Feely and other prominent jumpers being hindered by blocking forces.

“That's progressed even from when I started. There wasn't that level of physical contact or screening or blocking happening in and around the middle. It tended to be more often than not a 1v1 battle for the ball in the air and that's very much
different now. Every single team in the country is looking to screen or block the opposition main jumpers and allow their jumpers a free go at it,” Feely explained.

“So that's where the scrums happen, I think, is from people trying to screen and people trying to stop other people screening and then it can turn into a little bit of a maul. There's probably a little bit of a grey area in the rules in terms of what's allowed from a screening and blocking point of view.”

The Kildare captain, like so many others in Brian Flanagan’s squad, is on the mend from a muscular injury but is confident he will be ready for action come Sunday, April 19 when The Lilies get their Leinster Championship campaign underway for 2026 against Laois.