Kildare's Joe McDonagh dream - 'This was probably only in the far off depths of my brain'
SHORTLY AFTER WINNING the Christy Ring Cup yet again last year, Kildare goalkeeper Paddy McKenna and his colleagues met with manager Brian Dowling to discuss pushing on.
No county had won the competition more times and, frankly, none of the Kildare players fancied winning it ever again.
McKenna was involved in all five of Kildare's Ring Cup triumphs, between 2014 and 2024, and was desperate to operate regularly at a higher level.
Hitting new standards of fitness was a prerequisite, the players felt. A number of alterations were made to Dowling's backroom and perhaps the most significant was the addition of strength and conditioning expert Mickey Gillick.
Truth be told, the players were pushing an open door with Dowling who sensed the need for a fresh approach himself.
'He was in agreement with us, he had it pretty much set up before we even went to him,' said McKenna. 'He knew himself that, right, we're going to need something big here going up to the Joe Mac.'
It was a tough winter of physical investment but the dividend has been impressive.
'It's the fittest I've certainly ever been anyway,' said McKenna. 'That's probably an easy enough feat as a goalkeeper but for the lads out the field, they're all in great nick as well. And they're wanting more too. That's what we wanted really.'
It hasn't been quite a straight line between last year's Ring Cup win and qualifying for tomorrow's Joe McDonagh Cup final against Laois though. In fact, when Kildare began this season's competition with a Round 1 defeat to Kerry, it looked as if their old habit of falling flat on their faces at the higher grade was repeating itself.
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McKenna lifting the Christy Ring Cup last June. Ben Brady / INPHO Ben Brady / INPHO / INPHO
That was Kildare's ninth ever game in the McDonagh Cup, across three different campaigns — 2021, 2023 and 2025 — and their ninth consecutive defeat.
Seven weeks and four unlikely wins later, McKenna is on the verge of the most significant achievement of his career. Truth be told, just staying up in the second tier of hurling this year would have been progress.
'This was probably only in the far off depths of my brain at that stage,' said McKenna of a Croke Park final fixture after the defeat to Kerry. 'Thankfully we didn't make it to 10 losses in a row. Look, it was just getting back to basics, realising that we had to show up for every single game.'
So when exactly did Kildare start to think of actually winning the competition and of an audacious bid for Leinster SHC activity in 2026?
'Probably when we got the result in Carlow, to be honest, that was a big monkey off our backs,' said the five-time Ring Cup winner, referencing their Round 3 win.
'Carlow have had some massive results in the last few years, drawing with Kilkenny in the Leinster championship last year, beating Waterford in the league earlier this year, maintaining their status in Division 1B.
'That's the standard we want to be competing at regularly so we knew that if we were able to get a result against them…and beating Laois and Westmeath as well, the three teams that had been up in the Leinster championship, that's kind of where we got the drive and the realisation that, yeah, it could be on for us.'
Kildare manager Brian Dowling. Ben Brady / INPHO Ben Brady / INPHO / INPHO
The thing is, Kildare didn't just sneak into tomorrow's Croke Park decider. They topped the group while it was Laois that had to conjure the late goal just to draw with Carlow and nudge the Barrowsiders out on scoring difference.
Laois are still favourites to win and to make up for last year's final loss to Offaly. Three of their starting defenders – Lee Cleere, Padraig Delaney and Ryan Mullaney – along with half-forward Paddy Purcell, lined out in the 2019 final win. Several more 2019 performers are retained on the bench for this season's final.
But what they hold over Kildare in experience and hurling tradition could be trumped by the sheer desperation of Brian Dowling's Lilywhites to make the most of this rare opportunity.
'It's going to be tough and I'd say Laois will have their homework done on us,' said McKenna. 'I'd say they found out an awful lot about us when we played them in O'Moore Park a couple of weeks ago.'
The one certainty is that Kildare will play Dublin or Tipperary in an All-Ireland preliminary quarter-final in Newbridge next weekend.
Win tomorrow and their dubious reward will be a date with Tipperary. Lose and it will be the Dubs coming to the redeveloped St Conleth's Park.
For some, parachuting the Joe McDonagh Cup finalists back into the race for the MacCarthy Cup is unnecessary, even unfair. Reigning All-Ireland champions Clare are gone from the competition already after all, along with Waterford, Wexford, Offaly and Antrim.
'I can see both sides of the coin on that,' said McKenna. 'The fact that the Joe McDonagh is its own competition and, like, there's no other competition in the GAA where the winners of it go into a separately run competition that you could possibly win without playing the earlier games in it.
A general view of the Joe McDonagh Cup (file photo). James Crombie / INPHO James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
'But then it's a great carrot as well, knowing that we have another two weeks of this and you're summing hurling as well which is great. That's when hurling is at its best.'
Kildare have already been promoted to Division 1B of next season's National League. Getting to the Leinster SHC would cap their greatest season in decades. The last time they competed in Leinster was 2004. McKenna is confident that the success is sustainable, pointing to the growth of hurling around the county.
'There's hurling again in Round Towers, for example,' he said. 'A lot of south Kildare would have had a tradition of hurling when it was strong in the '60s and '70s and they're coming alive again.
'Towers, Twomilehouse, there's even hurling going on in Kilcullen as well, and Moorefield are after going senior now which is huge. That would be a so-called football club, with Leinster club titles, but they're showing that they're well able to hurl as well.
'For hurling to be sustainable in Kildare, we need every club going like that and making players available and that's what's happening.'
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