Kieran McGeeney is convinced that Kildare possess the talent capable of proving the doubters wrong by winning a 14th Leinster SFC crown.

The Lilywhites boss - speaking to the Irish Independent at the launch of the Leinster SFC yesterday - spoke in glowing terms of the county's 'fantastic' footballers and football tradition but admitted that history is against them.

"It is tough when you are trying to change a culture, a mindset. Although Kildare have fantastic footballers and a fantastic football tradition, results will prove otherwise with regards to inter-county structure.

"They have only two Leinster titles in the last 40/50 years. You are fighting against that, but you have a group of players who are well capable of doing that and more.

"But it is about getting them over that particular line."

He added: "I am hoping that I will be part of that, but it may not be."

McGeeney experienced barren days as a player himself with Armagh but his perseverance paid off in the end.

"It took me 10 years to win one thing (Ulster title) - and then 13 years to win ultimately what you were looking for.

"We used to walk around thinking we were pretty good at football too, and Brian McAlinden came in and showed us actually what training was - we realised that we weren't actually training hard.

"We thought we were, but he definitely showed us that we weren't.

"He brought us to a point too, won the Ulster championship from the preliminary round, which hadn't been done in a long time, won two back-to-back and got beaten then in the quarter-final by Galway.

"I remember standing in that tunnel down there, being asked after the Galway game, 'Was that it?' ... and I was thinking to myself 'It was, that was it.'

"And I suppose it's just going back to the old clichés, the darkest hour is before the dawn.

"And you just have to tell these fellas to keep on pushing, and hopefully some day it will come for them." Tweet

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