Ciaran Fitzpatrick has returned from injury for Kildare.
On the road to recovery following an ankle injury suffered in the Allianz Football League Division Three Final loss to Clare, Ciaran Fitzpatrick feels Kildare are making progress.
Fitzpatrick watched on as Kildare eventually overcame a spirited Wexford outfit in a tight Leinster SFC quarter-final at Croke Park.
“We’ve changed the way we’re going to play," is Fitzpatrick's assessment.
"It obviously takes a long time to get these adjustments. As a group we were very disappointed with the performance. We know that kind of performance isn’t going to be good enough against Westmeath, who are on a high after the last game, or later on in the summer. But we got the win.
"That kind of game, maybe in the last few years, you mightn’t have eked out the win. It gave us a platform to build on, to restrict a team to eight or nine points in a Championship game is nothing to be sniffed at so we just need to get the transition game working.”
There is reason for encouragement, and Fitzpatrick feels Kildare can develop further. “Yeah, we know that a lot of teams are playing this system and you have to be able to play different sort of systems.
"If the game calls for it, we need to play attacking football, but then another gameplan we need to know is playing defensive, being able to sit back and hit teams on the break and work that side of it instead.
"Football is at a stage now where you have to be able to adapt.
"I’d be defensively minded, all the way through from underage I played in defence, so, as a defensive person I’m happy to play it. I don’t mind it.”
John Heslin is a key performer for Westmeath.
Westmeath, provincial finalists in 2015, carry a potent threat according to Fitzpatrick, who highlights John Heslin's influence. “John Heslin is an unbelievable footballer.
"You could see it last year in the win over Meath, he was a real leader for them and he stood up, but we feel that percentage-wise, your high percentage shots and scores are going to be coming from inside and in-and-around the D.
"So if you can stop people scoring from those areas and push them into shooting from out further. That year Donegal beat Dublin, Dublin hit five or six points in the first half from out far and then they weren’t hitting them in the second half. You want to push them towards the low percentage shots.
"We know John Heslin is an unbelievable footballer, but we’ll have plans to nullify him. Lads know him. It’s not like he’s an unknown commodity.”
Fitzpatrick is delighted to be back in the Kildare reckoning too after an ankle problem. “Yeah, we’re training away. We’d a few games and I’m back in playing football so that’s, personally I see that as me putting my hand up again, hopefully get moving, get my sharpness back and that kind of stuff.
"I know I have the running in the legs so it’s just a matter of putting in a few performances and putting my hand up in training and that.”
