Championship Is Going To Come Around So Quickly Says Herity
By Daire Walsh
DESPITE finding themselves in arrears for the majority of the opening period, Kildare manager David Herity never doubted his side’s ability to come through a tough assignment against Mayo at MacHale Park, Castlebar on Sunday.
Thanks to a 2-24 to 1-19 victory over Derek Walsh’s westerners, the Lilies were crowned National Hurling League Division 2B champions. It may have looked ominous for the visitors when Mayo led 1-14 to 0-9 in the latter stages of the first half, but Herity’s troops never lost faith.
“I thought we weren’t giving the simple ball. I even think beforehand everyone seemed to come out onto the field and think ‘jesus, I can hit it over here from 100 yards’. I did think we created a load of goal chances, but just didn’t take them. Other days we were getting those. I’d say we had probably six goal chances in that first half and only managed to take one,” Herity remarked on the Castlebar pitch after the game.
“Even coming in at half-time, I never felt we were ever going to lose the game. The lads know how to play, we’re together three years at this stage. I felt good. If we just played it to our shooters. Played the right balls, played the quick balls through the hands, we could win it.”
Securing this third-tier title is a significant milestone for this Kildare team as Division 2A of the NHL will offer them a chance to test themselves against high-calibre opposition. Unfortunately, there isn’t much time to bask in the glory of this league success with the county’s Joe McDonagh Cup campaign getting underway against Carlow on Saturday week.
“It’s absolutely nuts. We were only there on Thursday night thinking, you’re playing a Mayo game and you’re like ‘when are we back training’ and you’re saying ‘Monday’.
“And then you’re like ‘jesus, 12 days and we’re into championship’. Normally you have a month and a half. It’s non-stop, but ideally you’d want to be tampering a bit more with the team,” Herity added.
“Normally you would in the league or you’d have that month and a half that you’d be able to play different lads. We nearly had to use the league as preparation for championship. To try and make sure that we had a team in place, because championship is going to come around so quickly.”