Can Cork get the most from their U20 footballers like Mayo and Tyrone do?

WHEN Cork and Kerry met in the Munster U20 football semi-final in July, a wildly oscillating game eventually swung Cork’s way as they edged past Cork after extra-time in a six-game thriller.

Cork led by seven points midway through the second half, but they were left hanging on down the home straight after being reduced to 14 men in the final quarter. The sides were level deep in injury-time when Cork substitute Ciaran O’Sullivan supplied the critical match-winning point.

Cork went on to win the final against Tipperary a week later. Cork were fancied to do well before they played Kerry but the outcome of that match – in the minds of the general footballing public anyway – seemed to focus on how Kerry had again failed to build on their remarkable successes of securing five All-Ireland minor titles in a row between 2014-18.

When all the books were balanced, Kerry only translated that minor success into three provincial U21/20 titles, never reaching the All-Ireland final in each of those seasons.

Kerry would have expected to win at least a couple of All-Ireland U20 titles from that bounty, but it wasn’t a total shock either when they didn’t; Kerry haven’t reached a final at the U21/U20 grade since last winning the U21 title in 2008.

Senior titles are all that ever matters in Kerry but there is still some bewilderment at how Kerry couldn’t transfer that success into All-Ireland U20 silverware; in two of those All-Ireland minor finals, Kerry won those games by margins of 24 and 20 points respectively.

In the 2017 minor championship, Kerry won their six games by an aggregate margin of 93 points. The closest any team came to Kerry that season was 10 points.

There were some mitigating factors in how Kerry failed to build from that platform at U20. David Clifford, who drove Kerry to that 2017 minor success, couldn’t play in the U20 campaign two years later because he was already an established senior footballer.

The grade had changed by then from U21 to U20, which meant most of those 2017 players (which was the last time minor was U18) had only two years to wait to play U20. Clifford’s loss was colossal, but, despite winning 16 All-Ireland minor titles, Kerry never followed up any of those titles with an U21 or U20 title three years later.

RARE

History has shown that such a feat has never been easy, but Cork were once the masters at combining both successes, managing that feat at minor and U21 three years later on four occasions; 1967-’70, 1968-’71, 1981-’84 and 1991-’94.

Mayo combined that double in 1971-’74 and 2013-’16. Meath also managed it in 1990 and 1993, beating Kerry in both finals, just as Cork had done by beating Mayo in the 1991 and 1994 minor and U21 finals.

When Mayo won the U21 final in 2016, three years after securing the minor title, it was the first time in 15 years that the All-Ireland minor champions from three years earlier followed it up with an All-Ireland U21 title, something Tyrone had managed in 1998 and 2001. And those Tyrone teams formed the bedrock of the Tyrone sides which won three senior titles in the last decade.

When that Mayo U21 squad won the All-Ireland minor title three years earlier in 2013, they defeated Tyrone in the final by three points. Some of the names which played that afternoon featured heavily again in this year’s All-Ireland senior final; Stephen Coen, Conor Loftus, Diarmuid O’Connor, Michael Plunkett, Brian Walsh (Mayo); Frank Burns, Cathal McShane, Conor McKenna (Tyrone).

Matthew Ruane was one of the youngest players on that squad and, while he didn’t feature in that minor final, Ruane was Man-of-the-Match in the U21 final three years later. James Carr, who came on in the senior semi-final against Dublin in August, wasn’t part of the minor squad for that 2013 final, but he also played in the U21 final in 2016. Fergal Boland, who featured too in that game, was also on this year’s Mayo panel.

Tyrone didn’t get the same return from that minor team, but McShane and Burns played on the U21 team which won the All-Ireland two years later in 2015. And that side has huge representation on this year’s senior team – Padraig Hampsey, Kieran McGeary, Burns, McShane, Conor Meyler and Mark Bradley.

Tyrone’s greatest bounty was harvested from the golden generation of 1998-2001, which saw them win the 1998 All-Ireland minor title, and successive All-Ireland U21 titles in 2000 and 2001. It was almost expected that they would win the 2000 U21 title because Tyrone had narrowly lost the minor final to Laois three years earlier.

Of the players which played in those three All-Ireland underage finals, 13 played some part in the county’s three senior finals won between 2003-2008. Four of those players – Owen Mulligan, Brian McGuigan, Stephen O’Neill and Enda McGinley – played in all six of those finals. O’Neill and McGuigan also started the 1997 minor final.

Both Tyrone and Mayo have certainly benefitted from All-Ireland U21 success since the start of the millennium, particularly with the number of players put through from those successful sides.

In the lead up to this year’s All-Ireland senior final, a handful of Mayo players were trying to achieve a remarkable treble of winning All-Ireland minor, U21 and senior medals. But Tyrone put paid to that dream.

Senior is always the goal but winning All-Irelands through the underage grades is certainly beneficial. As All-Ireland minor champions in 2019, Cork will be looking to add an U20 title to that success in 2022.

It won’t be easy. But Cork are the one county with a rich history in trying to combine that double.