With all the other Division 2 sides in action on Saturday night, Kildare's home game with Donegal was the only tie of the day in the second flight, and Kieran McGeeney's side continued their fine early season progress by recording a resounding 1-17 to 1-9 win.
Young star Michael Murphy opened the scoring for Donegal with a free but the Ulster men would go another 22 minutes before troubling the umpire's flag again, in which time Kildare had bagged 1-5 without reply.
Gary White scored the goal, which was a somewhat soft concession from Donegal's point of view but their hopes were revived straight after when they went to the other end of the field and scored a goal of their own, Conal Dunne taking advantage of poor goalkeeping under a Barry Monaghan high ball, for an easy finish to the net. It didn't spark a true revival however and Kildare were a very comfortable 1-8 to 1-2 up at the break.
Colm McFadden took Donegal to 1-3 after the restart, before Dermot Earley had a good goal effort saved for Kildare.
In a generally slow-moving second half, the Lilywhites were 1-10 to 1-5 up midway through the period, and with Donegal making little headway, that stretched out to 1-16 to 1-7 helped by 0-5 from key forward John Doyle.
Ken Donnelly finished the game with 0-3 to his credit on a day when Kildare served notice of their intentions with a comfortable victory that puts them in the driving seat for promotion to the top division.