By John Harrington

You’d understand if a trip to Croke Park to play Dublin in the opening round of Division 2 of the Allianz Football League would bring on a bout of PTSD for the Kildare footballers.

The last time they were faced with these opponents they conceded five goals in the first 27 minutes of what was an absolute horror-show of a 2022 Leinster Final from a Kildare perspective.

There’s surely a temptation after matches like that to just treat it as one of those days when everything goes wrong, but Kildare were honest enough with themselves not to take that easy out.

Instead, they sifted through the wreckage of the defeat in the immediate aftermath in the hope some valuable if painful lessons could be gleaned. Kildare forward, Alex Beirne, believes they can show on Saturday that they did.

“It would have been very easy to bury the tape and never look at it again,” he admits. “But we did a bit of video work on it the Thursday after it. Again, that wasn't the nicest session to be a part of, but we took huge learnings from it, we had to.

“It showed a lot and we're just want to use the lessons we learned from it and improve and see where that leaves us. There's a huge belief and confidence that we can kick on.

“Having that learning under our belt and then the Mayo game (the subsequent 2022 All-Ireland SFC Qualifer defeat) as well, they were two games that were tough to lose, different kinds of ways of losing, but huge learnings taken from both games.”

Playing Dublin must be a daunting task for every other team in Leinster such is the stranglehold they’ve had on the province since they last lost a championship game in it in 2010.

But if they’re every going to be knocked from their pedestal, the only way you’ll find the means of doing so is to play them as much as you can and put every lesson learned along the way to good use.

Kildare offered signs they might be the best equipped to end Dublin’s dominance when they defeated them in the League last year, and Beirne is certainly enthusiastic about the prospect of another learning day on Saturday, despite the humiliation of that Leinster Final defeat.

“Of course, yeah,” he says. “They have been the standard bearer for years now and still are. They were unfortunate to lose to Kerry by the last kick of a ball. So they're still within touching distance of being the number one team.

“Playing them, especially in Croke Park, I know a lot is said about it from the outside, but that's the ultimate test - playing the best teams in Croke Park.

“You're almost, not kidding yourself, but it has to be looked at in a different perspective to playing anywhere else. It's a huge test and exactly where you want to be, saturday evening in Croke Park playing against one of the top teams in the country. We'll be just looking to gauge ourselves against them and see where it leaves us and hopefully put in a good performance.”

Kildare certainly have the potential to be make significant strides in the coming years if they can generate some initial momentum.

The majority of their panel have tasted success at minor and U-21 level and have come through a well-organised S&C programme that starts at an early age in the county’s academy so they’re producing a generation of footballers who are both physically and mentally strong.

In last year’s League they defeated Dublin and Monaghan and drew with Kerry, and so were perhaps unfortunate to be relegated because of a final round defeat to Mayo.

And though the Leinster Final defeat to Dublin was a disaster, there were some positives to glean from their championship exit to Mayo because that was a game they looked like winning for much of the contest.

There were definitely some good signs of progress in 2022, and it’ll be interesting to see now can they back that up and make even more this year.

“Yeah, last year we felt like we were making good strides and then obviously the relegation was a sickener because we were on the pitch after the Mayo game and at one stage we were going to be staying up but then news came through we were gone,” says Beirne.

“Division 2 is still a very good League, it's a huge standard down there, it's really competitive. But obviously the aim is of course to get back up to the top tier again and hopefully get a couple of seasons running in that.

“But we felt there was good progress made. We felt that as a group. Maybe not reflected so much in the championship, but it's definitely not back to square one. There was a lot of work put in last year and we're hoping to build on that for this year.”

You won’t go far without a good team spirit and it looks like Kildare have developed that under a management team made up of county legends like Glen Ryan, Anthony Rainbow, Johnny Doyle, and Dermot Earley.

The manner in which the panel organised a successful blood-drive last year was certainly characteristic of a motivated group who are tight-knit off the pitch as well as on it.

“There's a huge want to be there,” says Beirne. “Anybody who's there wants to be there and there's never, ever once been a case or instance of lads moaning or not wanting to do something or not wanting to be at training. We've five or six lads there and they all want to be there and they all want to play and represent Kildare.

“So it is, it's a really good environment. It's a real sense of togetherness there within the group.

“There's a lot of belief there and the hope is that we can get a good run in the League and a few good wins and good performances and roll into the championship on the back of that because it's obviously a shortened season now with not much time between the League and championship.

“We're looking forward to hitting the ground running and having a good, positive year.”