Brian Dowling believes Kildare’s first round defeat to Kerry was the catalyst for their sensational Joe McDonagh Cup triumph.

Dowling can now look forward to hosting Dublin in an All-Ireland SHC preliminary quarter-final next weekend and facing his native Kilkenny in next year’s Leinster SHC after guiding the Lilywhites to back-to-back Christy Ring and Joe McDonagh Cups.

"It's incredible, I can't describe the dressing-room after that Kerry match,” the Kildare manager recalled after his side’s 2-26 to 1-19 victory over Laois at Croke Park.

"I've been in a lot of dressing-rooms down the years, losing All-Ireland finals and stuff, but that honestly was one of the worst I've ever been in.

"I didn't know what to say to the lads. It was hard to say anything. I questioned my own ability as a manager, you know, where do you go? What do you do?

"We actually met the lads on the Tuesday night and we did no video analysis, like we normally would. We just had a hard chat.

"We told a few home truths between ourselves, as players and management. Then we just went back at it. We actually trained hard afterwards that night and it was the best thing that ever happened."

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