KILDARE legend Johnny Doyle hopes the Lilywhites can follow Meath and Down’s lead if they win the Tailteann Cup.
Just two years on from winning the second-tier Championship, the Royals have had the summer of their dreams.
Johnny Doyle, pictured for AIB ahead of today’s Tailteann Cup final between Kildare and Limerick at 2:30pm[/caption]
Meath have beaten Dublin, Kerry and Galway and are in the All-Ireland semi-finals for the first time since 2009. They will face Donegal tomorrow at Croke Park.
Down won the 2024 Tailteann Cup to book their place in the race for Sam this summer.
And excellent group-stage wins over Clare and Louth were part of a hugely impressive campaign before their gripping 2-26 to 3-21 All-Ireland preliminary quarter-final loss to Galway.
Now, Doyle hopes Kildare can benefit from the same lift if they beat Limerick in today’s Tailteann showpiece at Croke Park.
He said: “No 1, we have to go and win it — and maybe to the outside world Kildare should be beating Limerick. They’ll beat them when they’ve beaten them and they won’t beat them before that.
“Teams I’ve been on myself in the past when people say, ‘Oh, you should win that’, and we don’t win.
“That’s the consistency we probably lacked over the last few years, it’s, ‘Yeah, let’s go and win and have no doubt’, rather than spend another year in the Tailteann Cup thinking, ‘Oh, we need to build for the future’.
“The future is now and we have to capitalise on that, but certainly it would be a big plus to win and kick on.”
Doyle, 47, is aware that Kildare fans can quickly lose faith.
The Allenwood clubman was their coach under Glenn Ryan but a disastrous 2024 saw them fall into Division 3 of the NFL before a shock Tailteann quarter-final loss to Laois.
They were blasted on social media as things went from bad to worse. Doyle was largely oblivious to it but knew it affected the players.
Ryan walked as boss after that defeat. Brian Flanagan took the reins for this year and, slowly but surely as they returned to Division 2 and saw off all challengers in this year’s Tailteann to date, the Kildare support have come back onside.
But Doyle admits last season was a nightmare.
‘CAN BE FICKLE’
He said: “We can be fickle in Kildare. When we’re winning the whole place gets behind the team and when you need the support when things aren’t going well, that’s when you really appreciate it.
“It was tough but to be fair, I mean a lot of people that give out, including myself, I put myself in this bracket and have maybe criticised club managers but when I meet them, I don’t . . .
“It’s easy to give out but nobody ever came up to me and ate the head off me or gave out to me or anything like that.
“I remember after the Laois game my sister ringing me saying, ‘Are you all right?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’m OK, just disappointed’, and she was like, ‘It’s just that they’re going mad online’.
“But that’s part of it, we just have to accept that, but it was tough for everybody. You’d have nothing but the height of respect for those lads that just kept grafting and grafting.
“A lot of them are still there so you’d be so hopeful that they will get over the line because they put in massive work. To a man they stuck at it and hopefully they’ll get the rewards.”
AIB, proud sponsors of club and county, were joined by Johnny Doyle to look ahead to the Tailteann Cup final — 2025 marks AIB’s tenth year as a sponsor of the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship and fourth year as a sponsor of the Tailteann Cup.
