Trevor Giles says Kildare have always ranked amongst Meath's toughest opponents.

The two-times Footballer of the Year and current Royal County selector enjoyed more than his fair share of tussles with the Lilywhites down through the years and another one looms at Croke Park on Sunday.

"When Mick O'Dwyer was over them, fitness was a huge thing with them," the Skryne clubman reflects in The Irish Independent. "It was always the hardest game energy-wise, when you were playing them. We had loads of good games with them, some of those games were in '97, '98.

"Some of them have been shown on the television recently. Some of them look very outdated, but a couple of them stand up well against the modern game. There was good football in them. It was different I know, but there was some good, real honest, fast games there with good scores."

The 1996 and 1999 All-Ireland winner believes Kildare's quarter-final drubbing of Louth was more impressive than Meath's clobbering of Carlow:

"I suppose Kildare's 1-22 against Louth, that's probably a sign of a team playing well, rather than 7-13. So we were a bit sluggish to get going. In the first 20 minutes, we had plenty of attacks and we only got a couple of points on the board, for whatever reason.

"We were off with our fluidity... it's something you wouldn't get away with the next day, struggling for 20 minutes. So hopefully it was a bit of rustiness with the long lay-off from the league and injured players finding their feet.

"Like, Louth and ourselves, we'd always have a tight game so if someone beats Louth by that much, you know, you take notice. In fairness, they were really good against Louth, their kicking out was good, they played a lot of clever short kick-outs that they successfully retained.

"Their forward line is the new thing with them, Brophy, Fogarty, Mulhall ... McNally. Two-footed players, off the left and right, apart from being big and mobile. They can win their own ball too and, if you do bottle them up, they'll have runners coming in support. So they'll take a bit of holding based on that form. That's the challenge." Tweet

Most Read Stories