When boys like Niall Kelly are lighting Sunday afternoons up, something is right with the world.
It’s almost a revolutionary defiance now when you see man like him rail against the modern trend. The Kildare centre forward is small, he’s stocky, but Jesus Christ he can kick a football and, crucially, that comes in handy because, guess what? He’s playing football.
As any sport does, we went and got carried away there for a while. We got caught up in the latest fad – in squats and deadlifts and making boys run 200 metre sprints. If you could produce 40 pitch-length sprints in a game, you were prime real estate but it didn’t take too long for the footballers to start taking the game back again.
That was…. fast@KildareGAAhttps://t.co/oGqkL6XkMc
— GAA JOE (@GAA__JOE) February 6, 2017
Against Meath, the Lilywhites boasted a 15 that had just three men over the age of 25.
They have young, talented footballers coming through successful underage teams – boys like Ben McCormack drilling in 1-3 in his league debut – and then they have Niall bloody Kelly.
The sharpshooter has been moved around the forward line as the Leinster outfit trialed new ways to become competitive and adapt to the modern game but, on Sunday, he was given the number 11 shirt and told to go pull the strings.
He did just that like a master puppeteer but he chipped in with 2-2 as well. And, as the game was threatening to leave behind pure footballers like him, he went and dragged right back to the good, old days. The way it should be.
“It has gone away from it [the conventional game], it’s hard to deny,” Kelly was picked as SportsJOE’s GAA Hour’s Performance of the Week.
“You see a lot of teams only playing with three forwards and they depend on everyone else behind the ball to attack at speed.
“The game’s gone away from it a little bit but there’s definitely still a place for it [orthodox footballers].
“Me, myself, I’m not the most athletic or strong player but I’d like to think there’d be a place for a technical player in every team. I think it might be coming back to that again.
“Watching a few of the games, the amount of kick passing… it seems to be coming right back into the game. It’s great to see and hopefully that will continue to prosper.”
Testify.
Listen to the full interview and a review of all the league games below.
