Kildare failing to harness enormous potential

We're only approaching mid-February and Kildare are in trouble again.

Their margin for error in the nerve-shredding Division 2 whittled down to almost nothing.

If it sounds familiar, that's because it is. Kildare were in more or less the same quandary at this exact stage last year, after taking a battering at home to Cork.

Yes, there was another inquest after that one. The 'why aren't Kildare better than they are' article is a regular staple.

The team's form prompted a stern warning at county board level this week. Chairman Mick Gorman told their February meeting that he had made clear to Glenn Ryan that results were "not good enough."

One delegate from Sallins was inclined to attribute recent performances to "a lack of fire in the bellies" and - in an echo of Martin McHugh's previous diagnosis of Meath's ills - lamented that there was a sorry preponderance of desk jobs in the county.

"If my poor dad was still alive he would be saying the same thing what he said back years ago that 'since 1935 the ploughman that used to play the game is no longer there, they are now all collar and tie,'" Sallins delegate Tom Cross was quoted as saying in the Leinster Leader on Wednesday.

Kildare's continued failure to 'ignite' is one of the perpetual sorrows of the Leinster football championship and a puzzler to outsiders.

Broken down, the county would appear to have all the elements necessary to become a Gaelic football powerhouse.

Kildare are the reigning under-20 All-Ireland football champions, also winning the title in 2018. In 2022, they reached another decider at the age-grade, losing to another Canavan-inspired Tyrone team.

The current team boasts huge amounts of raw athletic potential and a squadron of forwards that is arguably superior to