THE MIDDLE THIRD:AFTER WATCHING Kildare give Laois a good hiding on television the previous Saturday night, I decided I had to go to Navan to check them out for myself last weekend. Now is the time of the year to be moving into form if you're going to be a contender. The slog is over, the work is done. You are either hitting your stride in these weeks or you're heading for home. Kildare don't look like a group of fellas who are ready to put their feet up just yet.

It was my first time going to Navan for a Saturday evening qualifier. We made a night of it – got into town early, got out of town late. I wanted to walk about the place and find old Meath heads to chat to. I found David Beggy and Bernard Flynn and came away knowing that Meath people’s passion for football is as strong as it ever was. Their fervour for a few pints isn’t in trouble either.

The whole night would do your heart good. Whatever anybody says about the system, you’ll struggle to come up with a championship structure that throws up a better occasion than we got. These Saturday night qualifiers are great affairs. They take on a life of their own with teams playing weekend after weekend. People head into town around five o’clock and have a drink before heading up to the game, then they make a night of it afterwards. It gets the town buzzing and gets people out spending money on a Saturday night in the middle of a recession.

Sometimes I find going to a match on a Sunday afternoon would nearly feel like work. You’ll often get a sleepy atmosphere and it can seem a bit like going through the motions. But there’s a romance to these Saturday night games, a real energy.

People know it’s do-or-die.

Whatever structures the GAA come up with in the future, meaningful Saturday night games have to be a part of it. There’s no going back now.

Kildare are a fine, serious side. I had to see them in the flesh again to get an idea of just how fit they are. What I saw was a team that doesn’t stop running, one that works till it drops. There’s no doubt they’re a mirror image of their manager.

One passage in particular stood out for me. Just a minute or so into the second half, their corner back Hugh McGrillen came upfield, made a 60-yard run with ball in hand and kicked a beautiful point to put them three ahead. That was something special, just by itself. But what really struck me about it was that the next ball that came out of the Meath defence broke to him as well and he burst on to it again and set up the next play. When I saw that, I thought to myself that these fellas mean business.

Have you any idea how it feels after you’ve made a 60-yard run in possession? You’re wrecked, completely and utterly shattered. A 60-yard run with the ball is the equivalent of a 200-yard run without it. The effort it takes to solo the ball, to protect your body, to mind the ball, to keep your head up and look around you, to take a hit or two along the way and to decide what choice to make with the ball – it all takes a massive amount out of you.

I guarantee you as McGrillen went back to take up his position after kicking the point, the very last thing he wanted to see was the ball coming in his direction. Yet, when it did, he hammered into the challenge, won the ball and moved it on. That’s more than just self-motivation. That’s a man playing in a team where this kind of thing is expected. Kieran McGeeney has done a serious job there.

You can even see it in their goalkeeper Shane Connolly. Over the past fortnight, you’ve seen both the Wexford goalkeeper Anthony Masterson and the Derry goalkeeper Danny Devlin hesitate and jib about with balls that have come dropping into their square.

Connolly was faced with a dangerous ball on Saturday night and didn’t give it a second thought. He came out and gathered it and walked straight through Brian Farrell in the process. I’d say Farrell was light on his feet for a good five minutes afterwards as well. These things count.

If Kildare have a problem, it’s that they labour a bit on the ball and have to work incredibly hard for their scores at times. The worth of Bernard Brogan or a Colm Cooper or a Stephen O’Neill is that sometimes you can just let the ball into them and they’ll go get the score themselves. Kildare don’t have that player. All their scores are team scores.

And no matter how fit they are, they’re not so much fitter than everybody else that they’ll be able to manufacture those scores at will against the bigger teams.

None of those bigger teams will want to see them though. You’d have to expect they’ll take Derry on Saturday and, after that, I see them doing damage to a Cork, a Kerry or a Dublin. They’re to be avoided. They set up with huge numbers behind the ball and they trust each other in possession. You can also see that they have a huge spirit within the squad and look to be in a happy place.

McGeeney is clever in the way he uses players as well. You look at somebody like James Kavanagh, a fine player who is probably worth his place in the starting line-up.

McGeeney has been using him off the bench and getting huge effort out of him when he’s on the pitch. He came on after 20 minutes on Saturday night and was crucial to Kildare winning. If he’s annoyed at McGeeney for not starting, he’s keeping it to himself and putting in the work when he gets on the pitch.

Subs need to make an impact. Especially in a team like Kildare where the game plan is all based around players working so hard. You can’t be coming on to the pitch and just getting a run out or easing yourself into it. It’s almost like a business – you have to add value or else there is no point in you being there. Kavanagh made a huge impact on Saturday.

The difference between the teams came with a substitution on the Meath side. The loss of Séamus Kenny was huge, both because of what they lost and what they replaced him with. There was a small bit of disarray in the Meath team when he went off. Emmet Bolton got up the pitch untouched and untracked purely because Kenny wasn’t there to keep an eye on him. He scored 1-1 and turned the game Kildare’s way.

Meath sent Stephen Bray out to play on Bolton when Kenny went off and put Paddy O’Rourke into the full-forward line. I know everything was happening at 100 miles an hour but to me, that was a mistake that lost Meath the game. Bolton had already made three or four runs forward and had scored a point of his own by that stage. The player to put on him needed to be a wing forward or even a wing back who was sitting on the bench watching this. Not a corner forward who had been concentrating on getting his own score.

Anytime I was on the bench as a player, I spent the game watching the opposition and picking out where I’d be able to do them damage when I came on. I’d be tuning myself into the game, working out what I would need to do to get into the game as quickly as possible. The player Meath replaced Kenny with needed to be somebody in that frame of mind. Stephen Bray was playing his own game, trying to get the score that would win it for Meath.

The teams were level at this point, remember. If Bray had scored or set a point up for his inside forwards, there’s a fair chance Meath would have held on and won. It’s understandable that the main thing on his mind was getting forward for a point. But somebody needed to tell him that his main job was curtailing Bolton. Instead, there was a breakdown in communication and Bolton was let go free and Kildare won the game.

Down the town afterwards, I found Meath people fairly mixed about it all. Their team had given a real good account of itself so although they were disappointed to be out of the championship they at least put in a performance. If anything, they were a bit annoyed because they knew they hadn’t been a million miles away from a win.

It will be interesting to see the fall-out there. I think on the whole, Meath people are coming around to the idea of Banty (Séamus McEnaney) being in charge. If they got to the point where they were putting up that good a show in every championship, there’s a good chance of progress. You could see those players were playing for him on Saturday night. I have a feeling he’ll get another year.

Overall, it was a good weekend’s football. The Connacht and Ulster finals on Sunday were the perfect answer to anyone who says the provincial championships don’t mean anything to teams. The way Trevor Mortimer and Keith Higgins fought each other to get out and block Donie Shine near the end on Sunday tells you all you need to know.

Those boys are experienced heads too, not rookies without a Connacht medal already in the bag. Try telling them or the Donegal and Derry players that the All-Ireland series is all that matters.

We can give out all we like about the need for Champions League formats and whatever else but between those two provincial finals and the qualifiers on Saturday night, it’s hard to find too much wrong with the way things are at the minute. No system is perfect and we’re probably wasting too much energy hoping to find one that is.

PS: Sunday GameWatch: It was a nice change to see nobody giving out about referees in big games again. Very impressed too with Kevin McStay's big green folder. There could be career as a wedding planner ahead of him if the punditry doesn't work out!