Flanagan hopeful Lilies ready to bloom after hard work at underage level

At the time of his forced early retirement through injury Brian Flanagan told the media that one of his biggest regrets was not winning a Leinster senior title with Kildare.

Nearly eight years later and the wait for the Lilywhites still goes on, but Flanagan, who is currently preparing his Kildare Under-20 footballers for Saturday's All-Ireland final against Kildare, says things are going in the right direction.

"There's been a lot of progress made in the last few years," he points out.

"Leinster, we haven't been as competitive as we would have liked but we're beginning to get there. There's a couple of things that have to take place, a couple of steps you have to take to be ultra competitive with Dublin in Leinster final.

"That meant bringing through successful underage teams and schools teams, as well as getting the senior team competing in Division 1 [of the league], which they did this year.

"A lot of those building blocks have been put in place and I do believe that Kildare will be really competitive in Leinster over the next while."

A victory on Saturday would see the Lilies claim a second title at the grade in five years. Added to that Naas' All-Ireland victory in March and Naas CBS's Hogan Cup triumph in same month, and it would appear that the county could be about to return to the glory days of the turn of the century.

"The development squads have worked really well," he adds.

"Johnny Doyle and Paul Divilly are putting huge work in and we're really beginning to see the fruits of that coming through at minor and Under-20 level.

"We've really got our house in order and we want that to continue, we want it to bring success, but we need to keep our eyes on the prize in terms of this weekend."

The Kildare seniors also have a