Kildare Are Champions (Leinster Final, 1956)

KILDARE ARE CHAMPIONS

Seamus Harrison’s kicking decisive.
Kildare 2-11 Wexford 1-8
Irish Press, Monday, 23 July, 1956.

All Kildare was at Croke Park yesterday, and they were not disappointed. The sun shone and the Lily Whites delighted their thousands of supporters by winning the Leinster senior football title – their first provincial victory since 1935. They are worth champions, for they had to fight back from near extinction in the first half, as Wexford played rings round them. At one stage they trailed 0-2 to 1-4 and it was a hint of their unyielding spirit that they drew up to only a point behind at the interval.
In the second half it was a very different story. Kildare, sensing that they now were within striking distance, played with rare dash and purpose. Then Wexford’s backs, hustled and harried, began to give away free after free through hasty, unnecessary fouling and the Lily Whites, brilliant, took every chance that came. Kildare’s left half-forward, Seamus Harrison, had shown his deadly accuracy near the interval, pointing three frees in as many minutes. Now he proved, his worth by kicking four placed points in the first quarter of the second half. You would fancy that Harrison’s first-half kicking would have pointed the lesson for Wexford’s backs: on the contrary, they persisted in fouling needlessly, so that all their forwards’ earlier good work was wasted. Footballer – cum – hurler Paddy Keogh raised Wexfords’ hopes by pointing a free in the 23rd minute, but in vain. Kildare hammered home the last nail in Wexford’s coffin two minutes later when full-forward Pat O’Loughlin rammed in a goal from 25 years, a bullet-like shot, that gave Joe O’Neill no chance.
If Wexford’s forwards complain this morning who can blame them? They played some of the nicest football of the match in the first 20 minutes, to build up that 1-4 to 0-2 lead. Paddy Keogh, Mick Byrne and their captain John Ryan all played well together. But then the cracks had been threatening in their defence every time Kildare got moving, burst open, and the Lily-Whites were back in the game. Wexford full-back Nick Redmond was for the first – but not the last – caught out of position and Kildare’s right corner Eamon Treacy had the ball and the square to himself, but for goalie O’Neill. Treacy moved to about 10 yards out – then O’Neill was groping helplessly for a shot that fairly shook the net.
That was the game’s crucial point: just before Kildare got the chances from frees that Harrison was able to turn into golden points. Having got the early uncertainty out of their system, they never looked back. So Kildare won a game that had promised much, but, in the end, gave little. We had some brilliant individual performances, particularly from Kildare’s centre half-back, Larry McCormack, but except for the early work of the Wexford forwards, combined football was just not there.
Apart from Harrison’s placekicking, Kildare had one very vital advantage – speed. Speed in getting to the ball, speed in putting where it would do most good. This became quite apparent in the second half, when the Wexford forwards were left flat-footed in the race for the ball.

Kildare Team: D. Marron; P. Feely, D. Flood, J. Clarke; P. Gibbons, L. McCormack, M. Doyle; P. Moore, E. O’Loughlin; R. Swan, P. Mooney, S. Harrison; E. Tracy, P. Loughlin, D. Dalton (capt.), Subs: M. Bohan for Doyle, N. Moran for Mooney.

The current COVID-19 pandemic has understandably resulted in much disruption to the sporting calendar, including a delay to the start of the GAA Championship. The All-Ireland Football and Hurling Championship Finals were delayed in 1956, due to a very serious polio outbreak in Cork. This was the previous occasion when the football championship was delayed due to public health concerns.
As it happens, Kildare footballers won the Leinster Senior Football Championship that year, their first Leinster Title since 1935. It would be 1998 before their next title. Perhaps this is a good sign for the fortunes of the Kildare footballers this year when the GAA Championship begins!