Teams braced for another close encounter

Mick O'Dwyer must have a heart of steel. No matter how many afternoons he has spent on the sideline for games like this, there's no immunity from that sort of tension. The man has to be running out of nerves. "Well, I suppose we were lucky and unlucky," he smiles, showing no after-effects of a pulsating 70 minutes which so easily could have brought victory or defeat. "We got a couple of goal chances that maybe we should have put away, but then Dublin missed a couple of easy frees as well. So I'd say justice was done. Ah yeah, a draw was a very fair result on the day.

"But it was a cracking game of football from one end of the field to the other. So physical, with two very fit teams. And I think it's going to be another 50-50 game the next day. That's a good Dublin team and we still have a lot of inexperienced players. But this is our fourth championship game and they're learning all the time and improving all the time."

For a game of such high intensity, it was easy to forget that Dublin had a lead by three points at the more telling stage. Did that ever bother O'Dwyer?

"Well, the general discipline of the team was superb. They harassed and kept on fighting until the end. When we were three points down I'm sure there were a lot of people thinking that Kildare would die at that stage. And somebody said we only had three wides. That's certainly positive." Down the hallway, it's hard to tell if Tom Carr is disappointed or relieved. "Both of us had a lot of opportunities to win it but there was a lot of tension out there as well and that brought quite a few mistakes.

"Still, I do think we played very well, with a lot of pride and passion. I think there were some very, very soft frees conceded and they didn't score a whole lot from play. But I don't think there are any wholesale lessons to be taken from it and I don't think a whole lot is going to happen between now and two weeks' time. I think it will be the same kind of stuff the next day."

Dwelling on the high number of frees for Kildare, did he think any of those were dubious? "I did say they were very, very soft but I'll leave it at that. Seriously though, and not just in this game, I think good tackling is being punished across the board."

Some of the major questions, however, have been answered, especially those surrounding Dublin's form coming into this game. "People were saying that Dublin hadn't had a test to date and of course that was in the back of my mind as well. But when the tempo was upped I thought we were well in it, and we were leading by three just after half time. If we had got another one just then it might have made a big difference.

"But I'd have no complaint with any player who went out there today. Paddy Christie was exceptional on the ground or in the air, and the half backs were superb. Peader Andrews was close to man of the match for me. There was a lot made of his performance last year but I think he fairly answered that today."

Only when the probing goes a little deeper is Carr willing to turn up a negative: "Sure, we missed way too many frees and that's something we will have to look at. But we knew that, coming into this game with Declan Darcy not available, but he should be okay for the replay.

"Obviously players will be disappointed that they didn't win. But they're not overly disappointed. And what they will take from it is that they're good enough to win it. I suppose the referee may have played a bit short in the end but in a way I was happy with that. It would have been terrible to lose the game on a breaking ball or a soft free."

Inside, the men in blue are wondering if it should be faces down or heads up: "Today was the defining game and we were prepared for the day we would fall or move on," says Jason Sherlock. "So it's hard to decide if you're disappointed or you're happy. It gives us another game under our belt but I think ultimately we're disappointed that we didn't get out of Leinster today."

For Kildare captain Glen Ryan, the prospect of playing Dublin in a replay rings a bell. "I think we kept it tight on the Dublin forwards in the first half but it opened up more in the second half and I think we got caught out once or twice. But it was a good, hard and fair championship encounter and there will be nothing much in it again the next day."

That was something at least everyone could agree on.