ALL-IRELAND/SFC QUALIFIERS ROUND THREE:WHEN WICKLOW dumped Kildare out of the Leinster championship in the first round two months ago, the thought must have entered rookie manager Kieran McGeeney's mind that he should have stayed playing with Armagh for at least another year.
Had he done so, he would have been pocketing another Ulster medal yesterday but instead he is preparing a revitalised Kildare for the side his former team-mates accounted for in yesterday's replay, Fermanagh.
There were no shortage of vultures circling following that shock defeat at Croke Park but James Kavanagh's injury-time goal against Cavan restored a mood of buoyancy in Kildare that has been reinforced by a three-point win in Limerick on Saturday night.
"It's the first time Kildare has got over the second round of the qualifiers," McGeeney said yesterday.
"It was a good victory against a good team (at the Gaelic Grounds) but that game is gone now and the provincial finalists have taken a harder route.
"I suppose at this time of year it doesn't really make a difference who you get. The way (Fermanagh) have been playing it's one of the harder ones, no doubt about it. They're flying. We'll have to look at it and do a lot of work because they're one of the hardest working teams around. They have a lot of top quality players as well and were very unlucky last week against Armagh, which is a top team."
The Mullaghbawn native doesn't concur with the notion that Kildare might hold an advantage coming off two hard-fought victories, while Fermanagh have just a week to come to terms with missing out on a first Ulster title.
"Not at this level, I don't think so. Not when you consider the games they have been playing, which is probably the highest level they could play. They beat two of the top-tipped teams in Ulster, Monaghan and the National League champions, Derry.
"They brought Armagh to a replay. Tyrone is the only one of the fancied teams in Ulster they haven't played, so there's no doubting the quality they've been up against.
"That was only the second game they've lost this year (the other being the Division Three league final) so they'll not be lacking when it comes to self-belief."
If they were though, McGeeney is happy to state that drawing Kildare will provide the Ernesiders with the perfect pick-me-up.
"They probably feel that out of the four teams that were left, that they would have gotten the weakest of them.
"I'd say most of the four other teams were hoping for ourselves, whereas we just were going to take whoever we got.
"We'll be trying to give the best account of ourselves that we can. There is more in this team. I don't like the word potential, which is just something that you haven't fulfilled, which means it's a negative more than a positive, but there is a lot left in the tank."
