Kilmacud have ‘work to do’ for Naas showdown – Meath great Bernard Flynn

The Meath great joined Robbie Brennan’s backroom team earlier this season and was in Ardee to see a wind-backed Kilmacud storm ten points clear only to see that giant cushion reduced to just two points at the end of the third quarter.

The All-Ireland champions rallied over the closing stages to win by five (1-16 to 1-11), and they will now seek to complete the club’s first Leinster SFC three-in-a-row against Naas next month.

Kilmacud were emphatic winners of their previous two head-to-heads – a Croke Park Leinster final in January 2022, and a Parnell Park quarter-final 12 months ago – and are strong favourites to repeat the trick.

Flynn was hopeful that they’d “open up a bit more” on their return to Croker, while pointing out they were “down a good few players” in Ardee.

“It was Craig Dias’s first game back in, what, three months?” he added. “If you look at the likes of Mickey Mullin, Cillian O’Shea, Theo Clancy – to me, he was one of the best players I’ve seen since I came in. Jimmy Murphy is probably heading for Player of the Year.

“You have four of those guys out of your backline alone. It’s giving other fellas a chance. And Robbie is very fair with them. But my role is very much in the background.”

Brennan – part of Flynn’s Meath U-20 backroom team in 2021 before they stepped down in a row over access to senior players – recently described the legendary forward as his “eye in the stand”.

Flynn himself summarised his role as “doing a little bit with young lads”, offering snippets of advice and talking to players privately.

However, he reckoned there was very little he could teach the likes of Paul Mannion or Shane Walsh, Kilmacud’s two marquee forwards. “With you being a forward, you can say one or two small things that might help the situation,” he surmised. “You can have a nod, a little word here and there. They’re great lads to work with but you don’t change a lot with players like that.”