Heartbreak before Kildare JFC success for Niall Kane and Robertstown

Niall Kane has been on the Robertstown senior team for 20 years now and while he may lament not having won more, it could have been the playing career epitome of almost. Niall entered the senior squad at 14 years old and was a starter just two years later, a feat quite literally impossible today.

“It was a great grounding. You learn the ropes very quickly and you learn how to hold your ground or you’ll be crucified,” Niall explained.

“We would have always been there or thereabouts, getting to semi-finals and finals and it seemed like it was never going to happen.”

The run of near misses would start in 2004 as Robertstown came up short in the county final against Castledermot, a team they had beaten earlier that year in the group stages. Niall and his team would lose three more county finals in the years following before finally reaching the seemingly unattainable. 

“We were always beaten by the team that would go on and win it, whether it was in a final or not. The Mayo of the Junior Championship in Kildare,” Niall laughed.

The last in the sequence of final defeats came against Caragh, as Robertstown lost 0-8 to 1-4 on a dire day.

“It must have been the worst game of football ever played in Newbridge. Anyone that paid in on that day should have been given a refund. I’d nearly go on record to say it was the worst game of football ever played, there were hailstones and everything too,” Niall recalled.

“We just never got into it, they were the better team on the day and in fairness to all the teams that beat us, we were always second best.”

For their successful 2011 season, the club brought in Patrick ‘Stretch’ Winders to the dugout, as well as new playing faces into the club like Eamonn Fitzpatrick, Aidan Dunne and Dave Nolan.

“Everything came together for us in 2011. He (Stretch Winders) trained us like dogs, we had good lads that came in and good lads there already. We had some very good players like Joe Kavanagh and Mickey Moran all over the field.”

Robertstown beat Two Mile House 2-10 to 2-7 in the county final to finally lift the Kildare Junior Football Championship, their first since 1989.

“I remember about 15 minutes in I was thinking this one was different. All the other finals you just knew after five to 10 minutes it wasn’t going for us. We had a lot more steel than in previous years and a lot more fitness because of how we trained. We thankfully got over the line in the end,” Niall said.

Three points down in the closing moments, The ‘House piled forward to hopefully fumble the ball into the net off someone’s elbow, back or behind.

“They were lorrying the ball into the goal and you worried that it was going to bounce in the wrong place. The worry from all those years of getting beat,” Niall explained.

“I remember seeing Kevin Fitzgerald gathering the ball and burying it into the stands. The referee blew the whistle and I didn’t know what to do. The last few years you were always being beaten, you almost had the routine of losing down to a tee. Then to win, it was just incredible.

“We were going up the steps in Newbridge and none of us knew what to do. I remember Eamonn Fitz(patrick) saying on the way up the steps that the only time he had gone up them was for a disciplinary meeting. So that’ll show you,” he laughed.

Few Championships won across the country that year will have been as feverishly celebrated as Robertstown’s 2011 win following years of heartbreaking near-misses..

“I remember meeting my father after and everyone was balling. This was a Junior Championship in Kildare, but everyone was crying because it had taken so long to win it. It was 1989 since we last won anything, I was born that year,” Niall recalled.

“I can still remember it now and to be honest you are chasing that feeling ever since. That is why I say that one more would do and that would be me finished. You would always get the lads from 1989 coming in talking to you about their year, but now we are just like them banging on about 2011.”

The Robertstown team and faithful would celebrate long beyond that county final day. The Kildare champions would exit early from the Leinster Championship, but would carry their momentum strongly into Intermediate.

“The following year, Sean McLoughlin from Carbury came in and he got the best out of us. We got to the Intermediate semi-final that year. We drew with Monasterevan when we should have beaten them. We had a few chances to win it, but didn’t take them,” Niall said.

“On the same day, Johnstownbridge were raging hot favourites to win the Intermediate Championship and they were beaten by Raheens. If we had beat Monasterevan we would have fancied ourselves against Raheens. But listen, Monastervean battered us in the replay and that was that. That was the closest we came and they went on and won Leinster after that.”

After the many disappointments and ultimate glory of the late 2000s and early 2010s, Robertstown are now competing for the Junior Championship once more. 

Niall is now captain of the side who have come up short in three of the last five county finals and, going off their previously recounted route, have to lose just one more before their day will come.

However, whether the prophecy is fulfilled or not, the new Robertstown captain is thrilled to be leading his club on that journey.

“I was made captain last year and it means the world to me. There are lads in every club the same as me that just absolutely love it all. It is something you couldn’t imagine being without,” Niall said.

“There are young lads coming through now and I would have played with their fathers. You want to bring them through and they can carry the flame on. You only have the jersey for a small amount of time and you hope you leave it in a better place than you found it.”

Niall closed the interview with a tribute to a man that loved Robertstown as much as he did, the late Frank Dowling. 

Summed up by the words that the club shared at the time of his death, “Frank loved Robertstown, and Robertstown loved Frank.”