Golden generation or flash in the pan? The unique attraction of the U20 championships

The inter-county U20 competitions are always a fun spectacle, in either code. The results are always a little more surprising, especially when compared to their senior counterparts at least.

Take last year’s Connacht U20 Football Championship – you’ll find a few surprises. Sligo and Leitrim both beat Mayo, but Mayo beat Galway.

In Leinster Offaly beat Kildare, but lost to Longford. Dublin were bested by Louth in the semi-final.

While those are one-off games – if you take the small ball, there’s one instance in recent history where the consistent success of one county far exceeds anything their seniors have achieved.

Offaly’s U20 hurlers – a golden generation spearheaded by Kilcormac-Killoughey’s Adam Screeney.

Screeney may be a big name but he’s part of an even bigger picture. The Faithful county have a lot of talented young hurlers, and it’s starting to show.

Not only have they won two provincial titles and one All-Ireland championship at the U20 grade, they’ve returned to the Leinster Senior Hurling Championship and irrespective of their league final result against Waterford – will be playing Division 1A hurling in 2026.

Cork’s U20 hurlers have also had a good run in the last number of years, and you can see the impact that success is having on the current senior crop.

Underage titles are always nice to win, but the heat doesn’t always rise to the top.

The success of the top teams usually filters down, but rarely do outlying successes at underage level carry on at senior.

The bigger picture is the only way to create future success, and that is with player development. The Cork hurlers have seen that with the likes of Brion Saunderson, Micheál Mullins and Eoin Downey breaking into the Cork setup over the last couple of years. This current squad are as close to All-Ireland glory as they’ll ever be.

Cork U20 football boss Ray O’Mahony wants to see the same with the big ball – and player development is one of the things he’s targeting in the coming championship year.

“It’s great to win Munster U20, it’s great to win All-Ireland U20, but a big part of our job as well is to develop players for the senior squad,” he says. “As you saw, Hugh O’Connor came off the bench and played [against Louth], Colin Molloy was in with the seniors for a while.

GRADUATES

“There were about five players from last year’s U20 team that were in the development squad getting up to the next level,” O’Mahony explains. “From minor to U20 is a big step, but U20 to senior is another step up again – in terms of physicality and conditioning.’ 

Their season begins next week. Cork are away to Clare in the Phase 2 opener of the Munster Championship.

O’Mahony has a fair idea of what to expect from the opposition and his own team, but the three games already played by Clare and Tipperary acts as a great equaliser when they take on Cork and Kerry respectively.

“We went up to see Clare and Tipp, and Limerick and Waterford. The thing about the Phase 1 round robin [is that] they have three games under their belt. 

That gives them momentum and they’ll start building confidence.

“It is a very quickfire competition once it gets going,” he explains. “For us in our Phase 2 we play three games, back-to-back-to-back in three weeks. If you’re good enough to get to a Munster final, you get a two-week break – which we didn’t have last year.”

The two phases make for an interesting structure. One that rewards the weaker counties and punishes Cork and Kerry – but is that the fairest way to do it?

“There is no right or wrong in it,” O’Mahony says. “What was happening previously, some of the so called ‘weaker counties’ were getting drubbings, and the same was happening in some of the other provinces as well.

“Last year some teams were getting beaten by 20, 30 points.” 

Antrim were on the receiving end of that a little too often in 2024.

A 33-point battering from Tyrone, 17-point defeat to Down, a 28-point hammering from Derry. The Saffrons certainly could have done with the opportunity to play in a two-phased competition.

Clare will be glad they had that opportunity. It might just stand to them against Cork next week, even if O’Mahony’s side beat them by 20-points in this fixture last year.