Ladies Gaelic Football

24 | SPRING 2024 | www.ladiesgaelic.ie KILDARE MANAGER TALKS TO DAIRE WALSH ABOUT HER TEAM'S STRONG START TO THE DIVISION 2 OF THE LIDL NFL SHIFTING AMBITIONS A fter a whirlwind 2023 that saw them winning no fewer than three pieces of silverware, this year has seen the Kildare senior ladies footballers once again continuing on an upward trajectory. Following a nail-biting extra-time success over Clare in a Lidl National Football League Division 3 final a little under 12 months ago, Kildare went on to get the better of Wexford in a TG4 Lein- ster Intermediate Football Championship decider at Laois Hire O'Moore Park. Having edged out the latter in a tense semi-final, the Lilywhites then got the better of the former side in a gripping TG4 All-Ireland Intermediate Football Championship showpiece affair at Croke Park on August 13 of last year. Dealing with the step up in all three competitions is something that Lilies boss Diane O'Hora and her charges would have thought long and hard about heading into 2024, but they have taken on the first part of this challenge with considerable aplomb. Thanks to a run of five straight victories in Lidl National League Division 2, Kildare had secured a second-tier final spot and - crucially - promo- tion to Division 1 for 2025 with a couple of rounds to spare. With more than one team moving up and down between divisions in the current campaign, every point was going to be vital coming into the 2024 edition of the NFL and this was the Lilies' mindset when they kick-started their Division 2 campaign against Monaghan at Manguard Park in Hawkfield on January 21. Yet with Kildare managing to maintain a winning run that had begun in round five of NFL Division 3 in February of last year, they started to dream of an even bigger goal. "Every game means a lot more this year, so we did put a lot of effort into being ready a little bit sooner, in terms of having our panel picked a little bit earlier than last year. Because with two teams going down, it meant every single point that you got earlier on in the league was going to be crucial to keeping you safe," O'Hora explained. "Obviously coming from Division 3 into Division 2, that's always the concern. You don't want to yo-yo. You don't want to be a team that goes up, comes down, goes up, comes down. Because where's the progress? "Ultimately, in terms of where we were, our realistic goals were to stay in Division 2, but after the first or second game, obviously we were looking at 'maybe our goals need to shift a little bit'. To

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