Meath look to have better balance

QUITE the most puzzling notion about tomorrow's Bank of Ireland Leinster football semi-final is the advance publicity that suggests Kildare are happier playing Meath rather than Dublin.

There's no time here to analyse why anyone would favour an encounter with one of the best defensive networks seen this year, the current game's outstanding centrefielder and an attack boasting the reigning Player of the Year and two other proven big-match score-takers, over playing against a loose defence, a fitful centre field and a set of forwards schooled in the attacking principles of Mother Hubbard.

Anyway, Kildare come into this match with a rare morale-building championship victory under their belt. Even the team itself can sense the doubters who feel the 13-man defeat of Laois was "atypical Kildare" (in the sense that it's typical to have won a bizarre match of no likely application for the rest of the season rather than it was typical to have overcome adversity).

The big question posed is to what extent Kildare have been liberated by this piece of fire-eating from the hapless under-achieving that had been their lot in recent times. As the answer to that won't become apparent tint ii tomorrow evening, more tangible issues should be addressed.

On the face of it, it's very hard to see Kildare winning this one. Admittedly. the same could have been said about their match with Laois but until Mick O'Dwyer's men clip a scalp like Meath's, they'll be underdogs when the stakes are high.

There are sound reasons why the All-Ireland champions must be preferred tomorrow. They have a better balance throughout their team and looked steady against Dublin until making the bad mistake of thinking that a match which looks over after half an hour, doesn't need any further attention.

The process by which the match became Meath's involved the best football vet played by the team. The movement of the forwards. the vision of the passing, the digital precision of Trevor Giles's distribution from deep and the bravura of the score-taking was stunning.

It wasn't entirely unpredictable that they should rest on their laurels having opened up Dublin. That lapse and the determination of the Dublin half-backs not to see the team destroyed contrived to rebuild the match. Meath were nearly punished for presumption but again they had too much in the locker and could afford to score nothing for half an hour, miss a penalty and a close-in free and still win.

There is nothing to suggest that Kildare's forwards will do substantially better than Dublin's. Their free-taking is sound but from play the returns haven't been hectic. in their favour is the evidence of last February's NFL meeting between the sides when both Johnny McDonald and Martin Lynch, the players dismissed against Laois, gave both Mark O'Reilly and Darren Fay a roasting.

This could suggest that the Kildare full forwards have the measure of their markers but it has to be tempered with the realisation that both McDonald and Lynch have a tendency to produce their best football on heavier pitches and that both might be better suited temperamentally to being positioned further out the field.

The unforced omission of Martin O'Connell from the Meath defence for what must be the first time in a decade has caused comment but Sean Boylan and his selectors are right not to disturb a defence that did well the last day. it also gives more inspiring options to be able to spring an experienced player off the bench if necessary.

A further question for Kildare is how Glen Ryan will cope with his hand injury. The precautionary bandaging and padding sounds alarming.

Meath's centre field looks capable of doing no worse than breaking even and if it comes down to which team is going to better exploit an equality of possession, it's difficult to look beyond Meath.