Kildare goalkeeper Paddy McKenna and the Joe McDonagh Cup at Croke Park Photo by Tyler Miller/Sportsfile
By Paul Keane
Brian Dowling was managing the O'Loughlin Gaels U-16s a decade ago when they ran into Naas in a Kilkenny league game.
The Kilkenny City side had a strong team that season but just about won the game. The following season, they travelled up to Kildare for a shield final against Naas again and lost.
Dowling, now in charge of Kildare, was blown away by not just the ferocity of the Naas challenge but the passion of their celebrations afterwards.
He's managing a number of those Naas players now, the likes of James Burke, who will line out at midfield again for Kildare in tomorrow's landmark Joe McDonagh Cup final.
The thing is, the rise of Kildare hurling has been about far more than just one ambitious club driving standards.
When Dowling announced his 2025 panel back in January, nine different clubs were represented. Perhaps more significantly, the Kildare minor panel named in March didn't contain a single Naas player with 14 other clubs providing the players.
It's why when you ask long-serving goalkeeper Paddy McKenna if it is sustainable for Kildare hurling to keep operating at a high level, in the Joe McDonagh Cup or beyond, that he responds with optimism.
"There's huge work that has been put in for the last decade, decade and a half, on the hurling side of it," said McKenna, one of the senior team's most experienced players. "Colm Nolan has done unbelievable work, John Doran too, an ex-player who works with Kildare GAA in a coaching capacity and heads up the hurling side of things.
"Noel Mooney, who has been around for God knows how many years in Kildare GAA, all those guys have put this in place and they've got on to the clubs and really gone after raising standards.
"Like, there's hurling in Round Towers and in a lot of south Kildare where they would have had a tradition of hurling when it was at its strongest in the '60s and the '70s, they are kind of coming alive again.
"Towers, Two Mile House, there's even hurling going on in places like Kilcullen and now Moorefield are after going senior in hurling which is huge. That would be a so-called football club, having won Leinster club titles.
"But they're showing that they're well able to hurl up there as well. And that's huge, that's what you need because it's all great for Naas to be having the success they're having but for it to be sustainable in Kildare, we need every club going hard at it and making players available and that's what's happening."
Kildare goalkeeper Paddy McKenna saves a shot on goal from a Down free during the Joe McDonagh Cup match between Kildare and Down at Cedral St Conleth's in Newbridge, Kildare. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile
Where McKenna comes in is as a leading performer with the flagship senior county team. Kildare has already qualified for Division 1B hurling in the 2026 Allianz League and if the Lilywhites could win the Joe McDonagh Cup final tomorrow, they would be back in the Leinster SHC for the first time since 2004.
Truth be told, Kildare would have been happy enough to consolidate this season after capturing a record fifth Ring Cup title in 2025, and to hold onto their Joe McDonagh Cup status for another season.
Certainly nobody was talking about finals, trips to Croke Park and possible qualification for the Leinster SHC when Kildare lost their opening game to Kerry back in mid-April.
That was Kildare's ninth ever McDonagh Cup game, across three different campaigns, and their ninth defeat.
"This was probably only in the far off depths of my brain at that stage," said McKenna of a final fixture. "Thankfully we didn't make it to 10 losses in a row. Look, it was just getting back to basics, realising that we had to show up for every single game."
So when exactly did Kildare start to think of actually winning the competition?
"Probably when we got the result in Carlow, to be honest, that was a big monkey off our backs," said McKenna, referencing their Round 3 win.
"Carlow have had some massive results in the last few years, drawing with Kilkenny in the Leinster championship last year, beating Waterford in the league earlier this year, maintaining their status in Division 1B.
"That's the standard we want to be competing at regularly so we knew that if we were able to get a result against them...and beating Laois and Westmeath as well, the three teams that had been up in the Leinster championship, that's kind of where we got the drive and the realisation that, yeah, it could be on for us."
Kildare topped the Joe McDonagh Cup group while it was final opponents Laois that had to conjure a late, late goal to draw with Carlow and nudge the Barrowsiders out on scoring difference.
Laois are still marginal favourites to win and to make up for last year's final loss to Offaly. Three of their starting defenders - Lee Cleere, Padraig Delaney and Ryan Mullaney - along with half-forward Paddy Purcell, lined out in the 2019 final win. Several more 2019 performers are retained on the bench for this season's final.
But what they hold over Kildare in experience and hurling tradition could be trumped by the sheer desperation of Brian Dowling's Lilywhites to make the most of this rare opportunity.
"It's going to be tough and I'd say Laois will have their homework done on us," said McKenna. "I'd say they found out an awful lot about us when we played them in O'Moore Park a couple of weeks ago."
