The Kildare Senior Football Panel has been released today and is the same as we published a few weeks back here: Kildare Football Panel (ish)

Good to have it confirmed and fair play to Kildare GAA for the fancy graphics. We aren’t expecting the team for tomorrow’s Division 2 opener with Dublin in Croke Park to be announced until a few hours before throw in but it sounds like the likes of Ben McCormack, Daniel Flynn and possibly Eoin Doyle may need a little longer preparation time before they feature. Shea Ryan who was Down Under with brother Daragh for a spell is now back on “on the field” according to Glenn Ryan in this week’s Nationalist so hopefully he will line up in the full back line along with captain Mick O’Grady and Ryan Houlihan, who is back training after hamstring trouble according to Glenn.

Hard to pick a team after only two O’Byrne Cup ties (we won’t dwell on that) but it might look something like:

Mark Donnellan – Mick O’Grady, Shea Ryan, Ryan Houlihan – Paddy McDermott, Eoin Doyle (if fit)/ Jack Sargent, Kevin Flynn – Kevin O’Callaghan, Alex Beirne – David Hyland, Paul Cribbin, Paddy Woodgate – Jack Robinson, Darragh Kirwan, Jimmy Hyland.

But there’s a whole heap of guesswork and very little inside information in that selection.

Above all we’ll be looking for a strong defensive performance after the Leinster Final concession of five first half goals and a structure that makes it difficult for the opposition to penetrate. That worked reasonably well against Mayo until the last section of the game and seems to have been continued against Wexford and Louth, though with mixed results.

The rumour is Dublin will be fielding a strong team with a view to avoiding the slow start to their Division 1 campaign last year, so it is straight into the fire for Kildare in Croke Park tomorrow night (5pm).

The full Kildare 2023 panel (& those nice graphics!):