The curtain-raiser at Croke Park is like a collision between two worlds. Kildare, defending provincial champions and best bets to win it this year, take on a side which recorded the county's first win in championship football in four years. Carlow manager Pat Roe's achievement has been impressive. He took on the club culture in the county and in doing so built a stronger sense of identity within the panel. The spirit was crucial to the hard-fought replay win over Wicklow. This is a step up and almost certainly a step too far, even though Kildare have injury problems up front and are content to leave the wild geese Niall Buckley and Martin Lynch on the bench for the time being. A committed performance by Carlow would keep the morale up for next week's qualifiers and if the defence digs in, Sean Kavanagh gets a bit of a hand at centrefield and Mark Carpenter recovers best form up front, that can be achieved. Kildare, though, for the semi-finals.