Naas lead the way Kildare teams draw mixed results in early stages of Schools Leinster Football Championship

It has been a mixed bag of performances for Kildare in this year’s Leinster ‘A’ schools championships. Good performances, underwhelming ones and one incredible comeback along the way so far. After two games both the teams and the schools involved have a decent interpretation of where they stand in this competition.

Naas CBS

The outstanding candidate coming out of Kildare and no surprise given recent trends that it is coming out of Naas. Naas CBS got their campaign under way in Whitehall in north Dublin as they took on Scoil Aodhain and it may not have been a long trip home for the hosts but it was sure to be a quiet one as the Naas school ran riot with a 4-20 to 0-2 scoreline.

The premier Naas stars got to flex their muscles here as Kildare underrage star Ryan Sinkey looked a cut above the rest in this game in both quality and physicality. The young centre-forward towers above many of his opponents and that coupled with his languid style that quickly turns to bursts of pace means he is an enormous problem for opposition at this level. Sinkey hit 1-6 from play in Naas’ opener.

Sinkey is far from the only source of attacking quality in this team also, the CBS also have Carl Lennox who started this year’s Junior Championship final for his club Kill and was impressive in doing so. He hit 2-2 in Naas’ opening game and is a serious threat if allowed too much space.

Naas remained in destructive form in their second game as Marist College were next on the hit list and the Athlone school fell to a 4-17 to 0-7 loss. The quality of the football cannot be understated but as well as the physical size and nature of this team. 

Naas remain as an obvious contender in this competition, previous pedigree is perhaps not as significant a factor in schools football with the natural turnover of players but there is no denying that there appears to be always more star players coming down the production line in Naas these days.

Patricians Secondary School Newbridge 

The schools football equivalent to Kildare’s dream team of management and they even share a member in common as Kildare legend Johnny Doyle plays a supporting role in Tommy Moolick’s management team. 

Two very different results for Patricians so far as they opened their campaign with a fruitless journey to Offaly’s Faithful Fields to face Coláiste Choilm Tullamore.

A pattern that can be seen in both games however is the Newbridge side's slow starts, it was 18 minutes before Patricians were on the scoreboard against Tullamore with six points going the other way. Anyone involved in this team knows that is no way to go about winning games. In truth, I think Tullamore may have won this fixture anyways but there is no doubt that Newbridge’s start, that was littered with poor passing and hurried possession, made this a lot more cut and dry than it ought to have been for the home side on the day.

The same was true of their win against St Joseph's Rochfortbridge, although the slow start was to a much lesser extent. A great goal and a penalty had the Newbridge side eight points down with five minutes to go in the first half, but a few minutes of madness can happen to anyone. The worry here for Newbridge, especially given their incredible comeback, is wondering why we didn't see the spirit, fight and finesse that they showed in the latter stages throughout this game. It took a couple of big tackles and inspiration from one of their main men to change that.

A crucial difference in this game was also the presence, for the full 60 minutes, of Sam Ryan. The wing-forward led the Newbridge comeback with a superb contribution of seven points, half of his side’s overall total on the day. Ryan was only introduced at half-time in the Newbridge side’s defeat to Tullamore when it was almost too late. After inspiring their thrilling comeback win, I can’t see a scenario that doesn't involve Ryan on the pitch from the first whistle.

Scoil Mhuire Clane

Scoil Mhuire Clane opened their account in dramatic fashion with a draw away from home at Benildus College. There was confusion on both the sidelines and the field in this one as the refere’s full-time whistle blew and the players sprinted towards the official unsure of the final score.

It finished 1-10 to 0-13 and it was Benildus star Senan Phelan who converted the all important score for his side to share the spoils with the visiting team. 

This was a strange match-up for Clane, they appeared throughout as the side with the highest footballing prowess but were beaten by bursts of pace on the counter or lapses in their defending. This was a game they should have won, a good spread of scoring contributions from their forwards, in particular DJ Percival and James Ralph, put them in strong positions that they failed to capitalise on. A Clane win would have set them up well in this competition had cooler heads prevailed in this game but unfortunately for them, it ended in a share of the points.

The Benildus result will have only stung more when Clane saw the strong St. Patrick's Navan on the horizon and to their credit Clane were set up tactically very well. Clane did a good job of restricting those St Pat’s players for a lot of the game and were keeping pace down the other end until 15 minutes from time.

Tied at 0-7 each, a moment of inspiration saw Clane cut open and the Navan school found the net which signalled the beginning of the end for their opposition. It has been a campaign of disappointment so far, perhaps chiefly in terms of what could have been with what is clearly a talented group.

Ardscoil na Trionoide Athy

Ardscoil na Trionoide Athy have been on both sides of agonising results as they have won and lost by the narrowest of margins in their campaign. The first of which was one of positive nature as they travelled to Adamstown GAA to play Good Counsel College.

The Athy school would get back from their long trip south with the spoils having beaten the wexford school by 1-11 to 1-10.

For the second round, Athy GAA was the venue as the school welcomed Knockbeg college. The weather produced something of a pathetic fallacy for this game and as you can imagine in late November in Ireland, that wasn’t good news. A heavy and muddied pitch that was swept by wind had both sides struggling to find their feet.

Beyond James Harris’ 1-2, Athy struggled in front of goal and their shot selection and rash decision making cost them this game. It would be hard to envisage them being this poor again in this department but it is no doubt a chink in their armour. An improved calmness when in front of goal could see them produce a much stronger performance.