Unlike his counterpart Mickey Harte, Kieran McGeeney has opted to keep faith with the majority of the Kildare side that played in the last game of the league three weeks ago.
The Lilywhites’ circumstances, of course, were far different from Tyrone as while the Red Handers were already assured promotion, Kildare had to get a result against Galway to assure qualification for the Division Two League Final, which they just about managed as they escaped from Pearse Stadium with a point.
With a nice break and ten days in a training camp in Portugal to reflect on that game, Geezer has made just the one change to the Kildare starting XV, with Gary White coming in for Brian Flanagan at left half back.
Elsewhere, the starting team is full of names recognisable from Kildare’s emergence as a real force in recent seasons, with Peter Kelly and Emmet Bolton part of the defensive sextet and Johnny Doyle, Eoghan O’Flaherty and James Kavanagh all featuring in a strong looking forward division.
Although it is only the curtain-raiser for the Division One Final at headquarters tomorrow, the meeting of two championship heavyweights (in a literal and metaphorical sense), both of whom are in fine fettle, could be the clash of the weekend.
And if the game needed any extra bite, the presence of McGeeney v Harte on the touchline harks back to the famous, even infamous, battles between Tyrone and Armagh in the early to mid noughties.
Tyrone v Kildare throws-in at Croke Park tomorrow at 2pm. For more National League Final team news, click here and here.
Kildare team to play Tyrone: S Connolly; P Kelly, H McGrillen, O Lyons; E Bolton, M O’Flaherty, G White; M Foley, P O’Neill; E O’Flaherty, M Conway, J Doyle; A Smith, T O’Connor, J Kavanagh.
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