Jack O'Connor admitted it was a "tricky" day for him personally as his Newbridge return failed to produce a Kerry victory on the opening weekend of the Allianz NFL.
Last September, O'Connor quit the Lilywhites after two years at the helm and soon after took charge of Kerry for the third time.
O'Connor helped restore Kildare to the top tier before leaving and as fate would have it, his first league assignment saw him have to bring his Kerry squad to St Conleth's Park.
The Kingdom led by 1-7 to 0-4 at half-time but having lost the outstanding Gavin White to injury, the visitors were held to only three half time points and Kildare, in front of a large home crowd, came back in rainy and windy conditions to deservedly earn a point thanks to Jimmy Hyland's 72nd minute free.
"This was always going to be a tricky game for me," said O'Connor.
"A lot of good memories up here, I'm still very friendly with a lot of the boys and the backroom staff here, even the kitmen, Danno and Tom, great characters.
"We knew it was going to be a tricky game, no question about it.
"I gave it absolutely everything when I was up here in Kildare for two years. I enjoyed it, no regrets but it wasn't sustainable to keep it going, I'd have had to get divorced!".
Asked if he felt it was a point lost or gained, O'Connor replied: "It's hard to know.
"You could make an argument for saying we were lucky to get out of here with a point, the way we played in the second half.
"We basically tried to hold onto a lead with 20 minutes to go and that was never going to happen.
"Not happy with the second half performance...we played alright in the first, left a few scores after us. Paul Geaney had a chance of a point there, David Clifford had a chance of a point, went for a goal.
"Bits and pieces, we possibly could have been six or seven up at half-time, but I felt four was never going to be enough and that's the way it proved."
Glenn Ryan is trying to put his stamp on O'Connor's former Lilywhites now.
"It was nothing to do with my imprint, it's the fact that Kildare are just a very tough team to play here in Newbridge," added O'Connor.
"I know that from being involved with them.
"We'd a titanic battle last year at the Meath game, a very tough game. Kildare played very well in that game.
"The big crowd, the tightness of the pitch, the fact that the heavens opened a little bit, the ball was slippy so it was always going to be tough here.
"It really was a defender's day I suppose and that kind of reflected on the scoreboard, but we wouldn't be happy with our forward play.
"There wasn't enough movement up there, the ball wasn't sticking and Kildare were just giving us trouble on the counter then."
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