Kildare manager Jason Ryan and his Offaly counterpart Pat Flanagan were experiencing very different emotions after today's All-Ireland Round 2A football qualifier in Tullamore.

The Lilywhites put last Sunday's trouncing by Dublin behind them to win by two points and a relieved Ryan told RTE: "It was very, very close for the first 20 minutes and then for 15 minutes coming in at half-time we were in the ascendency and the entire second half was a dogfight, it was really tough.

"I'd say we were in control for 15 minutes, the 15 minutes coming in at half-time, that was it. The rest of the time it was fairly much tit-for-tat. After we scored our goal we had a few minutes where we were in the ascendency as well."

He added: "When Offaly scored their goal there was nothing in it at that stage so we were lucky to come away from here with a win."

Flanagan was left to rue the crucial period before half-time when the visitors turned a two-point deficit into a four-point lead.

"I'm bitterly disappointed to be totally honest. The spell just before half-time cost us five points and that was the turning of the game. It left us a little bit too much to do.

"Kildare were able to sit back in the second half.

"The boys have a lot of learning to do and they'll learn a lot from this and hopefully they can take heart from it. Moral victories are useless to us to be totally honest.

"We have to build and I did say when I came in here that we needed to get out of Division 4 and continue to build. I do believe that if these boys keep working at it and keep focused on what we want to achieve in the next couple of years I think we'll make it."

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