Exciting U21 grade should be cherished, not destroyed
While in hurling everyone was satisfied after a rollicking league semi-final double bill attended by less than 17,000 people, big ball commentators were bemoaning that ‘only’ 20,000 made it to its rather entertaining league semi-final fare, even questioning the rationale of the fixture.
While hurling is excited about a league final featuring an emerging Waterford team that didn’t even play in this spring’s top division, some football pundits have taken last Sunday in Croke Park as further advancing the case of scrapping league finals altogether, rather than mere and more proof we’re witnessing a very special team in Dublin.
Last month one of the men entrusted with being one of football’s guardians proclaimed it already dead.
Then when the next seven days threw up a couple of cracking U21 provincial finals, social media was again host to wisecracks lining up to ironically recycle Jarlath Burns’ line, it seemingly lost on them that many of the conditions that facilitated those rip-roaring U21 matches were what Burns was looking to safeguard — there were no 13 men behind the ball in Tuam Stadium the evening Galway racked up 3-11 and still ended up three points short of Roscommon.
At least though it seemed Burns and his critics could concur and take comfort concerning one thing: this year’s Under 21 competition, especially this year’s version, had been a thing of joy, even beauty.
There was that shootout in Tuam. Tipp’s 1-15 to 3-8 cracking win over Cork in Thurles. A thrilling Dublin-Kildare decider in Navan, and then in Ulster, Tyrone had pipped Donegal with an injury-time winning point.
And yet within days of the last of those games, along came Eugene McGee in his newspaper column calling for the abolition of the grade.
Somehow he never referred to any of those games. Somehow he found no upside to the competition.
It would be easy to dismiss the piece and the man as a killjoy, more inclined to be drawn to the negative than the positive. McGee has been a key opinion-maker over the years, from his status as a former All Ireland winning manager to his recent chairmanship of the Football Review Committee.
There were also some valid and interesting points in his column. As he pointed out the grade was initiated back in 1964 when most players of that age did not attend third-level institutions. Now attending and playing third-level is the norm rather than the exception.
Combining U21 football with Sigerson is hugely demanding on a certain demographic of player. At club level the rationale of the grade is even further questionable, with most players that age already either playing with their club’s senior or reserve team. To make up the numbers at U21, minors are being asked to step up to fill in.
Instead he was advocating for an U19 and U17 grade to replace minor and U21. His column and logic, however, was also flawed. For one he contended that “Players aged 19 today are well able to play inter-county football if they are good enough.”
No, they’re not, largely because not enough of them are developed enough. In all his time with Kilkenny Brian Cody has played only three 19-year-olds in championship hurling. Look at profile of the top football teams.
Cillian O’Connor was the only U21 player to have played significant minutes for Mayo over the last four years.
Kerry had no player 21 or younger feature in last year’s championship.
Dublin have given a couple of championship starts to teenagers in recent years — Ciaran Kilkenny, Paul Mannion, Jack McCaffrey, Cormac Costello — but they’ve been the exceptions.
More typical has been the case of Dean Rock who has only established himself on the starting team this year. Rock is 25.
The Donegal team that reached this year’s U21 provincial final featured only two players who have got significant game time for the county senior team this year: Ryan McHugh and Hugh McFadden. McFadden is now overage and has yet to play senior championship football.
Last Sunday in Croke Park showed that Cork are still too raw for the pace and physicality of top bracket football and only a couple of their players are under 21.
In hurling, more U21s are featuring for some counties, most notably Clare and Waterford. But would Tony Kelly & Co be the young men and players they are if it wasn’t for how they developed as a unit for having an under-21 grade and management in O’Connor and Moloney?
You look at most of the top football teams, the U21 grade was a key part of their development as a unit. Ten of the Mayo team that won the U21 All Ireland nine years ago are still playing inter-county football. The Cork team that won Sam Maguire in 2010 was backboned by players who had played in U21 and not minor All-Irelands.
Or take Roscommon. Would they have won last weekend’s Division Two title if the core of its team hadn’t the development bridge that is U21 county football?
As it is, if you come out of U21 and don’t make your senior county panel, your future development and career is doubtful. Most minors would be lost to the wilderness if there was no U21 county grade to act as a development stepping stone. There is even a case for an U23 development competition, considering there’s no stated consistency or purpose behind the intermediate and junior grades.
For sure, third-level GAA might develop an individual player but it isn’t as conducive to the development of a cohesive future county team and programme as the U21 grade.
Of course players of that age profile are overworked earlier in the year. But as the recent GPA report indicated, there are ways around it. Leave the colleges out of your Dr McKenna Cups.
Start the national league a bit later. You could go even further. Have no U21 player play in the national league until his county are finished in that grade, thus challenging senior management to develop older players — like Eamonn Fitzmaurice has with most of the 2011 U21 team destroyed by Cork in that grade — instead of discarding them and too easily opting “to go with the young fellas”.
This Saturday, Tipp footballers play in an All Ireland final. Few grades produce better football than U21 and few years in the grade produced better games and storylines than this. Enjoy it while it’s here. You too, Eugene.
