"Ability-wise there is nothing between Clane and Naas" - Clane manager Tom Cribbin ahead of this weekends Kildare SFC final

Clane manager Tom Cribbin has led his young side to a Senior Football Championship final this year as they face long-time championship favourites and current champions Naas.

The surprise package of this Championship, having stunned Celbrdge in the group stage with a scintillating display that put every Senior club on notice.

However, it’s not just surprise results that Cribbin and his side have brought to this year’s Championship. Clane have been widely considered the best team to watch this year with their free-flowing attacking style beautifully complementing their star forwards.

Cribbin said of the final matchup, “I think Naas have an awful lot of good offensive players and very good, experienced defensive players. They play on the front foot too and I think that will suit Clane and suit Naas too. I would rather go out and try and win the game than be afraid to lose it.

“My whole thing about managing this process is how we deal with the mental side of things, not the ability side of it. Ability wise I think there is nothing between ourselves and Naas but experience wise and been there done that, Naas have that over us big time.”

A case of the converse of how Clane will play was Celbridge’s semi-final setup against Naas. They got men behind the ball in order to stifle those key Naas players and did so relatively well before Darragh Kirwan put paid to that.
The Clane boss says a similar set-up for his team simply would not work.

“I think we have better forwards, Cebridge have a lot of big, strong, experienced defensive players. I have offensive players, if I try to play a defensive game with offensive players it won’t work.”

Cribbin explained his philosophy and that this team was never going to play any other way when he joined them, such was the attacking talent that he had available to him.

“I knew we had a lot of forwards, good young players and it’s important that they play in a way that they enjoy. It’s like anyone, if you go to a match and it’s negative, too dreary, like the first half last Sunday, people don't like it. I don't like it and the players don't like it. So we try to play an attacking brand of football and the lads are really responding to it,” Cribbin said.

For context of just how young this Clane side is, the average age of the starting XV that faced Athy was just 21.4 years old.
Cribbin said of the resurgence of his club, “A lot of great people before me did great work with underrage set-ups and took the senior job when they maybe weren’t capable of going to the heights that we are this year. We have slowly got to where we are now.”