Dowling praises 'reliable' Qualter after Kildare hurlers' first league win

“Delighted to get up and running. We had a positive performance up in Down, where we got our first point on the board. But we really wanted to win today,” the words of Brian Dowling after his Kildare side got their first league win of 2024 over Kerry.

“I thought our performances all year have been good apart from the Meath game. We performed against Laois and got nothing out of it so we really wanted those two points today, whatever it took. I thought the lads showed great character throughout that game, especially in the second half, a lot of lads stood up.”

Notable pre-match discussion surrounded the absence of top-scorer Jack Sheridan through injury. He would be replaced both on the field and on free-taking duty by Maynooth's David Qualter.

Qualter, only back from injury himself, hit seven out of eight from frees in an all-round brilliant display.

“We were without Jack today, a huge loss, but we’re lucky enough to have a reliable free-taker in David and in fairness James Burke nailed a free too and Paddy (McKenna) nailed 1-1 as well. Dead-ball situations are so important at this level and with the game we play we win a lot of frees so we need a good free-taker. Delighted to have himself and Cathal McCabe back because we lost another couple of bodies since the Down game, so great to have the two boys back,” Dowling said.

The man Qualter replaced, Jack Sheridan, remains a doubt, amongst others, for Kidlare's final league against Carlow this weekend.

“It is not a serious injury (for Jack Sheridan), but he wasn’t right for today and we are hoping he might recover in time for the Carlow game. But we are not going to take any chances either with lads. Cathal Dowling is very close to coming back, but not ready for today either. We’re down other bodies, but you have to worry about the lads that are on the pitch and I thought the new lads that are breaking into the team this year did really well today,” the Kildare boss explained.

The Lillies' lack of goals and missing of chances beneath the crossbar remains cause for concern, but the Kildare boss says they are doing all they can off the field to fix it.

He said, “We have to look at ourselves there and it looks like we are not doing work in training, but we are, over and over again. We need to make sure these ‘keepers aren’t making these superhero saves, we have to be nailing these chances.

“I thought their (Kerry’s) goal came against the run of play and it is always frustrating when that happens so that is something that we’ll keep working on. But I think this group needed that win.”