Rivalry given extra edge
The volume of players between the two panels currently attending UCC and Cork IT ensures some extra spice for the Tralee decider.
Kerry boss Eamonn Fitzmaurice can relate to the ethos of parking friendships for 60 minutes ahead of this Munster showpiece.
“I remember when I was U21, I was going out the door of the house I was living in in Cork and leaving Michéal Ó Cróinín and Anthony Lynch after me. A couple of hours later we were doing everything we could to beat each other on the pitch. There are lads from opposite teams who are buddies and living together. They’ll be very keen to earn bragging rights tonight and it gives you a great incentive to win the game.”
For Cork, the journey down to play in Tralee in the Munster U21 grade is a novel one. With captain Rory O’Sullivan out injured there are no survivors from their last meeting in Austin Stack Park two years ago.
But John Cleary knows the difficulty of success in enemy territory. “We’ve found it very difficult to win at U21 level down in Kerry. We’ve been beaten the last two times down in Tralee and you’ve to go back to 2004 when we went down there with an unfancied team in the summer that year and won a final. We got a draw a couple years after in Killarney but in general we have struggled down there.”
That theme of struggling is relevant to recent Cork and Kerry U21 games, which have been remarkably lopsided on the scoreboard. In 2009 Cork had 11 points to spare, in 2010 Kerry had an eight-point margin at the final whistle while last April Cork were runaway winners by 22 points.
“It is a funny trend,” admits Fitzmaurice. “Last year Cork got a run early on Kerry and they really capitalised on it. I played in one of those type of games myself in 2001 against Meath in an All-Ireland SFC semi-final. They’re hard matches to understand. But I don’t think the one-sided nature of recent games enters the equation because there are different teams.”
Cleary presided over last year’s emphatic success in Páirc Uí Rinn but he is not attaching huge relevance to that victory. “My attitude at U21 level is always that it’s a new year. I don’t think it matters whether you’ve three or 13 of the team from the previous year. In our first game against Clare, they had us in a bit of bother for the first 10 or 15 minutes and that should put us on our guard. We were pleased with the way lads reacted to the adversary of losing our captain Rory through injury and how they weathered the storm. But we need to play like that for the full hour.”
Fitzmaurice is in his first year in U21 management and has had scant survivors from last season’s panel to call upon. Yet he has scoured the county for talent and one of the major success stories has been full-forward Conor Cox, who was a peripheral figure at minor level.
“He’s done well and it’s a reward for a guy who worked very hard at his game and his physical conditioning. Conor would be from Listowel, a neighbouring club to mine, so I saw a good bit of him last summer and knew he was progressing. Often if a guy misses the boat at minor level they can be very hungry to play at U21 level as there’s no sense of entitlement.”
The traditional final pairing has emerged in the Munster U21FC this year and both managers have been impressed with their counterparts.
“The word is that Kerry have put in a huge effort this year,” states Cleary. “They’re very well-organised and very well-drilled. They blew Waterford and Tipperary out of the water in their last two rounds.”
“They’ve a lot of experience in my mind,” says Fitzmaurice. “They’ve four of last year’s backs and then Luke Connolly, Brian Hurley and Kevin Hallissey look to be really good players up front. There’s a lot of quality and also experience from last year.”
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