Kildare veteran Kevin Feely still holding out hope for a breakthrough in Leinster

“How’s the body?”

Kevin Feely grins and grimaces at the question, knowing well it’s coming. At 33, he’s been a midfield powerhouse for Kildare football for over a decade now, before which he spent five seasons playing professional football in Ireland and Britain.

As Kildare captain, Feely is both master and commander in other ways, still holding out hope of a senior breakthrough in the Leinster championship. That quest continues this Sunday when Kildare host Laois in the quarter-final (3.45pm).

“I’d a recurrent hamstring injury in the league, probably came back a bit quick, but happy to be in with a shout for the first Leinster game in a while,” he says.

“I know there was a time a few years back where you’re wondering is the provincial championship gone. We’re lucky now that Leinster is back competitive again, where you really want to be part of a winning team. Louth set the example last year, and they’ve definitely inspired other teams to really want to get there as well.”

He’s not looking beyond this summer – he turns 34 in August – although Feely does know something about keeping his body in working order. A qualified physiotherapist, he runs his own Athletic Therapy Clinic, working three days a week in Dublin and the rest from his converted garage at home in Athy.

“It’s fairly well known in the industry that we make our own worst patients,” he says. “You think you’ll be fine, because you know what you think you know, and then you don’t. So I need to trust our own medical department an awful lot better, just be accountable to them.”

He also knows Kildare’s form has dipped considerably since last year, when they were promoted back to Division Two in manager Brian Flanagan’s first season in charge, then won the Tailteann Cup in Croke Park in July.

Subsequently, Kildare picked up three points from their opening two games in this year’s league before their relegation was sealed by five defeats in a row. They only get to play in this year’s Sam Maguire as the reward for winning the Tailteann Cup. Still, Feely remains hopeful.

“We certainly thought going into the start of the season that we’d have enough to stay in Division Two, but I think the Derry game (in round three) seemed to knock us back quite badly. We got suspensions and injuries out of that.

“Extremely disappointed with the bare facts of it, but we still think there’s enough there that we can kind of turn things around and put in a good Leinster championship. We’ve probably as well a set up of a backroom team as you could possibly have in my experience anyway. It’s an unbelievable trio of managers (Flanagan joined by Davy Burke and Aidan O’Rourke) and coaches there, along with Damien Hendy and Daryl Flynn being selectors as well.”

After two years with Bohemians, Feely left for the UK in 2012, playing for several clubs including Charlton Athletic, Wimbledon, and Newport County. He admits the new playing rules introduced last year have helped prolong his career.

“Basically, it’s all the stuff that I would have grown up with when I came into senior football initially, and that I would have loved about the game, so they were all big turning points,” he says.

“Definitely, all those things made the books balance a lot more in favour of staying on. There were small thoughts about it, but off the back of how well last year went, how well the club went, and how good I was feeling physically, it was an easy decision to come back.”

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