Jack O’Connor’s carrot and stick for Kerry young guns

Jack O’Connor’s chief focus over the past two and a half weeks has been to find a carrot which he could dangle in front of his players. How successful was he? We should know around 6pm this evening.

It worries him that he had to go looking in the first place. There was no such searching required in advance of the Munster final. On that occasion, the Kerry U21s had a basket of carrots to choose from. No Munster U21 title since 2008. No championship victory away to Cork since 1997. There was also the 2016 Munster decider which had seen the Rebels raid the Kingdom above in Tralee.

Each motivational apparatus was drawn upon and O’Connor’s young charges routed the home outfit with 16-points to spare.