Kildare's football championship panel has been significantly strengthened with news of the impending return of Niall Buckley. Having spent the last year resident in Chicago and playing his football with the local club St Brendan's, Buckley will arrive back in Ireland this morning and will play for his Kildare club Sarsfields at the weekend.
Buckley will almost certainly be in line for selection in the Kildare team that begins its championship campaign on June 3rd in Croke Park, where they meet the winners of this Sunday's replay between Carlow and Wicklow.
"It's definitely good news for the club and the county," said county secretary Richie Whelan. "Whether he will be playing in the first game or not depends on a few things but he'll be back in the country anyway and that's the first step."
The Kildare county board made significant efforts this time last year to get Buckley to rejoin the championship panel. At the time he was playing with St Brendan's in Chicago and while he was interested in returning to play with the county, it would have prevented him from returning to play with his Chicago club under the GAA rule 41D (section C).
Kildare even made an appeal to Croke Park on the basis that the by-law applied purely to players returning for club games, although that was turned down.
As a result, Buckley played no part in Kildare's run to the All-Ireland semi-final, where they eventually fell to Galway.
Manager Mick O'Dwyer and his fellow selectors are almost certain to use Buckley's services at some stage during the championship. An All Star winner during their memorable run in 1998, Buckley partnered Willie McCreery in that summer's All-Ireland final against Galway. Since making his debut back in 1992 he had been a regular feature of the Kildare team and that is now set to continue for another summer at least.
Meanwhile, the National Football League relegation play-off between Donegal and Louth set for Saturday evening has been postponed because of Donegal's involvement in the Ulster championship replay with Fermanagh at the same time.
Galway have surprisingly left out the two Donnellan brothers, Michael and John, for their first round championship game against Leitrim on Sunday. Michael has been replaced by Sean O Domhnaill while Alan Kerins comes in at left full-forward at the expense of John.
GALWAY (SF v Leitrim): P Lally, T Meehan, K Fitzgerald, T Mannion, D Meehan, J Divilly, S De Paor, J Bergin, S O Domhnaill, J Fallon, K Comer, L Colleran, AN Other, P Joyce, A Kerins.
LAOIS (SHC v Dublin): J Lyons, N Lacey, S Dooley, D Killeen, E Browne, P Cuddy, J O'Sullivan, D Conroy, J Phelan, C Cuddy, D Cuddy, O Dowling, D Culleton, D Rooney, F O'Sullivan.
