Lara Curran eyes further success with Kildare moving on up

Following a trophy-laden 2023 that saw her playing in eight different counties across three competitions, Lara Curran will have a short trek for Kildare's opening Lidl National League game of the season tomorrow afternoon.

The primary training base for their county teams at the Centre of Excellence in Hawkfield is a distance of just over two kilometres from Curran’s home club of Milltown.

It has also been used as a host venue for several of the Lilywhites’ matches in recent years and will once again be the port of call when they kick-start their Division 2 league campaign against Monaghan (throw-in 2pm).

This will be the Lilies’ first game since edging out Clare in last August’s All-Ireland intermediate final, a victory that was preceded by their Division 3 and Leinster intermediate successes.

"It’s only about a five minute drive, so we’re considered very lucky," Curran acknowledged. "Whereas there are girls travelling from the north and the south of the county, which could be an hour or hour and a half round trips. We’re really blessed to have Hawkfield so close to us. It’s almost like our second home now.

"Last year was a great year for us. Obviously this year we’re just trying to look to build on that. We still have a lot of the team from last year with a few new girls coming in as well. We’re all really excited now to start the league and hopefully build game-by-game in the league.

"We’ll be playing a lot of newer teams this year that we hadn’t played when we were in Division 3 or intermediate. Hopefully that will do us good moving on into the Leinster championship, and then into the All-Ireland championship as well."

Though it remains to be seen who Kildare will face when it comes to the All-Ireland senior championship