At the start of the league season, Kildare were one of the teams expected to challenge for promotion from Division Two. Relegated slightly unluckily last season, they had enjoyed a positive pre-season, which even if it didn't conclude with a third successive O'Byrne Cup saw the holders lose out only after extra-time against Dublin.

Manager Jason Ryan could look forward to a settled and confident campaign. The reality has been a disappointment. They go to Cavan on Saturday evening having played three matches and sustained three defeats: two of them in matches against Down and Meath, which Kildare had controlled for long periods.

Ryan isn’t making excuses and says that in terms of injury the team is actually far better off than 12 months ago.

“We’re not in a bad state. Any manager who says, ‘we’ve two, three, four people injured – it’s a disaster’, they’re in cloud-cuckoo-land. You’re always going to have a number of guys out.

"We've guys who've really performed really well for us last year like Tommy Moolick and Cathal McNally that are nearly back but not quite right yet and others: Peter Kelly's been unfortunate but should be right for the game against Roscommon (the weekend after next) and Darryl Flynn is a long-term injury but it's no more than the norm for this stage. I would say at this stage last year we had a lot of bodies out and it was very disruptive but not at the moment."

Nor is he panicking even if the failure to get off the mark has probably cost the county a shot at promotion.

‘Results driven’

“Sport has to be results driven and I get that,” he says. “We were really happy with our January and while we were disappointed with losing to Dublin in the O’Byrne Cup final there were elements of the performance that pleased a great deal and even in the last three games.

“We were winning the Down game for over 69 minutes and we just got shocked at the very end. For 61 minutes we were in the ascendancy against Meath and they just finished that bit stronger than we did. Westmeath were the better team in the first half against us. In the second half we played strongly but probably weren’t as clinical as we needed to be: 33 shots and scored 13 points. That’s not a good enough return.”

The opening match against Down was particularly jolting. Leading by three points in injury-time in Newbridge, Kildare managed to concede 2-1 before the final whistle, affording Down a comfortable win – or at least a comfortable margin.

It also awoke old ghosts from the previous year when in an even stronger position against Tyrone, leading by five, Kildare got clipped by two late goals to lose a match that had looked in the bag for them. Had they kept one of the goals out, they would have remained in the top flight and Tyrone would have been relegated.

Ryan is anxious to reject the accusation that the team has a concentration problem, pointing out that it’s not even the same team at this stage.

“The team we played against Tyrone last year probably had 10 different players starting. It’s another group, between fellas returning from injury and Seán Hurley returning to Australia, Hugh McGrillen not playing this year. There’s a big turnover. It’s not something that we see as a bad habit the guys have got into or something that they are conscious about.”

Rather than see the inability to shut out matches as a characteristic of the team he instead believes that it’s an overall problem with consistent delivery throughout matches.

‘Consistency issues’

“In Gaelic football the start of each half and the end of each half – they are key periods. Against Westmeath we started well but finished the first half poorly so it’s more of a consistency issue. We need a level of consistency through all four quarters of a game.”

At the start of the year Ryan was conscious that the team’s defence needed to tighten up and during the O’Byrne Cup campaign he repeated the message that last year Kildare had conceded too many scores. One silver lining to the cloud is that the goal has been kept intact in all but the Down match.

“We were disappointed in losing the games but in the last four games (including the O’Byrne Cup final) we’ve only conceded goals in one of them, and that was a big target for us this year. It’s an element of consistency more than anything else, to be honest.

“I don’t think we’re far away from that. Sometimes a bit of luck is needed to get over that line.”