Griffin set for ‘innocent’ minor football final
Were Peter Keane to be elevated from Kerry minor to senior manager in the aftermath of the All-Ireland final, Tommy Griffin could well find himself part of the backroom team which replaces the man who got him into coaching.
Griffin, as part of Keane’s management ticket, has been serving as Kerry minor coach for the past three years.
It was the autumn of 2012 when the five-time All-Ireland medal-winner first cut his teeth on the sideline, the recently departed Kerry boss Éamonn Fitzmaurice asking Griffin to get involved with his Pobalscoil Chorca Dhuibhne team.
“Éamonn asked me to help out training the Corn Uí Mhuirí team as he was taking charge of Kerry and would be shooting out the door to go Kerry training,” Griffin recalls.
“I was still playing club football at the time, but this was daytime training, between 4pm and 5pm, so it kind of suited me. We won the Corn Uí Mhuirí, but lost to St Pat’s of Navan in the All-Ireland semi-final in the spring of 2013. It was still a great learning curve.
“We made up for it the following year by winning the Hogan Cup. Then Éamonn stepped away and I was with Kieran Moran and John Flannery when we won another Hogan Cup, beating Roscommon CBS in the final.”
Griffin says he owes plenty to his former Kerry teammate.
“Éamonn been involved with Kerry teams, club teams and school teams so he was the perfect man to learn from. You pick things up, though, as you move along.
"You start making your own decisions based on your ideas and passion for the game. Getting involved in the management of the Dingle senior team in 2014 was probably the biggest learning curve of the lot.”
His early grounding in post-primary football, Griffin believes, is what enticed Peter Keane to include him in his Kerry minor backroom team for the 2016 season. So far so good as the Kerry minors are 17 championship wins from 17 under Keane’s watch.
This management is bidding for a third consecutive All-Ireland on Sunday, a fifth on the bounce for the county.
“I had known Peter as I used to call to his shop in Killorglin in a previous existence. We always got on well and the topic of conversation was nearly always football.
"Peter eats, sleeps, and dreams about football so how could I say no to a man who was so committed. He probably saw me as somebody who was involved in schools and had their finger on the pulse as to how the game is played at this level.“
With the age of eligibility having dropped from U18 to U17, the Dingle native sees this summer’s minor championship as being more “innocent” than was the case in recent previous years.
“It is different this year because some of the boys are 15 years old and if you go back to the end of last year when we had the U16 development squad gearing up for this year, some were only 14, turning 15. They are only kids really.
“Last year, we had lads like David Clifford and Diarmuid O’Connor who were playing senior with their clubs. This year, none of these lads would even be allowed on a club senior panel.
"We had to do certain things differently, maybe, slow things down a little and curtail the training more, as well, because they would not be able for what you would have done with U18s over the previous two years. They are still learning their trade, even at school level."
“It’s innocent football, it’s very open football, no sweepers, it’s very pure. As a management team, we would prefer it a lot tighter and a lot more controlled, but because the players are so young, it’s loaded with unpredictability and that is why you can never be sure, especially on All-Ireland final-day, what is going to happen.”
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