Jack O’Connor: ‘It’s the fear of losing the jersey that drives fellas on’

The problem, relatively speaking, with winning three All-Ireland minor titles in a row is that people expect that success to automatically translate itself to U21 level.

Kerry started last night’s game with 14 players who had featured in the minor victories of 2014, ’15 or ’16 – the other, Matthew O’Sullivan, scored 1-1 – but they were still up against a Cork team laden with survivors from last year’s run to the U21 final.

Though the Kingdom were favourites, a victory of the magnitude which transpired wasn’t predicted by many. Naturally, manager Jack O’Connor was highly complimentary about what he had seen.