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Seanie's never-ending story has done Kildare few favours

The Seanie Johnston transfer saga has taken attention away from the best Kildare team in over a decade and thrust it onto one player who hasn’t even lined out for the team yet, writes Ewan MacKenna.

SO, HE WON’T play tomorrow. Yet here Kildare are, finally back at the foot of the mountain and still the Seánie Johnston saga is loaded heavy on their shoulders.

The climb will be hard enough without the extra weight yet they’ve nobody to blame but themselves. Firstly in luring the player and secondly in their handling of matters since, this has been completely the fault of Kieran McGeeney and his management.

The last time we saw them play competitively, they allowed the Cavan man to sit with their bench as they beat Tyrone in the Division Two decider, a move that allowed for plenty of photographs and plenty more chatter. A day that should have been about them finally getting their hands on some silverware became about off-field matters. And now as they open their championship campaign, so much talk has been about Johnston and not Offaly.

That’s a great pity because Kildare should be one of the most intriguing storylines running through summer. Can they win Leinster? Can they win the All Ireland? Can they get over the heartbreak of Dublin and Down and Donegal in recent seasons and make that final push for history? Yet there hasn’t been the time to ask or space to answer those questions because of controversy surrounding their new recruit.

Those defending the move have only predictable but misplaced counterarguments at this stage. Billy Sheehan plays for Laois. Thomas Walsh went to Wicklow. Larry Tompkins left for Cork. But just because those first two moves were wrongly allowed doesn’t mean this move is right and Kildare people should know well what its like to lose your best player to a stronger county and how it can distort the balance of power in football even further.

And for those who say that Cavan didn’t want Johnston, there have been plenty of players dropped from teams over the years but the best of them always worked out why they were dropped, improved on their deficiencies and came back better. Sure enough, Cavan are not blameless in all of this, but they are the ones most harshly punished.

Say what you want about morals in modern-day sport but the GAA wouldn’t survive without them. They are the reason a guy trains as hard in Leitrim as a guy trains in Dublin, even if the rewards will never be the same. They are the reason we have 32 teams that actually care. They are the reason there are rivalries and the championship as we now know it. Finding excuses to switch sides detracts from all that and opens a Pandora’s Box which could potentially detract immeasurably from what we all enjoy so much.

But if Kildare’s willingness to bring Johnston on board was bad form, their handling of the matter since has been bad as well. The many appeals have been shrouded in secrecy, little has been clarified, and no one is saying a word. It’s in such silences that people start to talk and all that has made matters worse and taken attention away from the best Kildare team in over a decade and thrust it onto one player who hasn’t even lined out for the team yet. Those that are playing are a group deserving of so much positive coverage yet the actions of their own management has meant that hasn’t happened.

There is no doubt Johnston could and will improve Kildare at some point as he is the ideal big-game corner-forward that could do serious damage off Tomás O’Connor but how he will add to the team is to miss the point. Kerry could do with a three and six, Dublin could do with a better midfield and Donegal could do with an extra five-star attacker. But all those contenders make-do without those players and make the best of what they have. They don’t go looking for a quality player in a weaker county like Brendan Murphy or Michael Quinn. Yet that is what Kildare have done here.

Oddly, Kildare were in a place where they might have won anyway but if Johnston is to play a pivotal role in such a victory, it will detract from the achievement and again, the rest of those on the Kildare panel deserve better. But they can’t blame anyone else here because they’ve been let down by their own and when they comfortably dispose of Offaly on Sunday, don’t be surprised if yet again the first questions thrown in their direction are related to Seánie Johnston. That will irk Kieran McGeeney but it’s his own fault.

After doing so much so right in Kildare, this has all been very wrong.

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