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At the annual Kildare convention in December 2018, the county board launched a shiny 32-page, five-year strategic plan.
One of the key visions of the plan, to be achieved within its 2019-23 timeframe, was that Kildare would compete in Division 1B of the Allianz Hurling League.
The county held Division 2B status at the time. In other words, they were among the counties ranked 19-24 in the hurling league.
It was a fourth tier they were unable to emerge from in the spring of 2019, defeats to Derry and Wicklow condemning them to mid-table mediocrity.
Against this backdrop, the target of climbing all the way up into hurling’s top 12 was an ambitious one, even without putting a five-year timeframe on it.
On Sunday at Laois Hire O’Moore Park, and in the final year of the county’s strategic plan, the Lilywhites will play Offaly for a place in Division 1 of the league.
Let’s go back inside the 32 pages of the plan. One of the progress indicators listed was that the Kildare minor hurlers would reach the Leinster quarter-final.
The minor class of 2019 went one better when defeating Offaly after extra-time to set up a home semi-final against Kilkenny. Speaking after that quarter-final victory, then minor boss Cathal Fenton labelled the result “a mammoth breakthrough for Kildare hurling”.
Five of that minor side – Cian Shanahan, Conan Boran, Paul Dolan, Cathal McCabe, and Jack Higgins – started on the senior team that drew with Offaly two weeks ago to secure Sunday’s Division 2A League final berth.
One last look at the strategic plan. It was written that the numbers playing hurling in Kildare “is quite small”. In particular, “there is little hurling in the south of the county”.
Earlier this week, the Kildare minors thumped Carlow 3-23 to 1-9 in the Leinster championship. On the bench was Cormac Doolan from the St Laurence’s club in the south of the county. TJ Nolan, also from St Laurence’s, was part of the 2022 minor panel.
Everywhere you turn within Kildare’s burgeoning hurling community, there is evidence of targets being met and surpassed.
One of the primary reasons for such is the Kildare Hurling Action Plan started back in 2018 and headed up by former Lilywhite hurler John Doran. It has three strands: club hurling development, club-school links, and building a club hurling profile.
From its initial launch have grown initiatives such as the Camán Chill Dara awards scheme, which rewards clubs for developing the game, and Camán Let’s Hurl, a school hurling program aimed at third and fourth-class kids.
The net result is growth in the numbers playing the game and growth in where the game is being played.
Eoin Stapleton, a native of Garryspillane and an All-Ireland U21 hurling winner with Limerick in 1987, is the current Kildare U20 manager.
Having started out with the Kildare U14s in the middle of the last decade, Stapleton moved up through U16, minor, and into the U20 post.
He recalls how no more than 50 players came through the gate for the U14 development squad his first year involved.
“When we were running minor trials, you could ask in 85 and 55 would turn up, and only from 10 clubs.” This year, the U14 development squad is made up of over 120 players from 18 different clubs.
“The development squads are getting more competitive, the spread of clubs is wider. That wave is coming.
“The interest from the county board has improved,” Stapleton continued. “There is great work being done by John Doran and Paul Divilly, past and present inter-county hurlers. They have driven the standards in the development squads, but also driven the standards in the coaches, which is far more important because there are now good coaches across all groups.”
Johnny Enright coached the Tipperary senior hurlers last year. This year, he is coaching the Kildare minors.
Stapleton has in his backroom team people like Peter Beirne (former Westmeath senior coach) and Eoin Roche (former Dublin underage coach).
“The minor and U20s are run as any elite inter-county squad should be. It has taken a while to convince everyone around the place that that needs to happen.”
Stapleton estimates that from the 2021 and ‘22 U20 panels, 13 have graduated to the senior set-up.
The results that will follow graduation from Division 2A to Division 1 won’t be pretty. But standing still among your own peers is an option Kildare have no interest in.
“How would we get on in Division 1? Not great. But it is all about the journey.
“You need to get promotion from Joe McDonagh. No more than the league, you will oscillate, but you must go up and try to close the gap.
“The first year we were involved with the minors, we went down and played Cork in a challenge. We took a 20-point beating. Of that team, seven will likely start against Offaly.
“We were trying to show them that geography was no excuse, that because a fella lives 60 miles down the road he is automatically better than you. No, that’s not good enough.”
Win Sunday and Cork could be paying a return Division 1 visit in 2024.