People before players remains the Keith Ricken mantra

Though Keith Ricken would love to win tonight's Munster U20 semi-final meeting with Kerry, developing people to take Cork forward is always the priority

Keith Ricken Cork U20 football manager speaking to the media during the week. Picture: Eddie O'Hare

Finding and developing good people, more so than good footballers, is what preoccupies Keith Ricken.

When Ricken was appointed “last-minute-dot-com” to the post of Cork U20 football manager in January of 2019, the brief put in front of him was a developmental one.

Those on the far side of the interview table impressed upon him that “most important” was raising the standard of the county’s flagship teams. His role, to that end, would be to nurture players so that they successfully transition from U20 to senior level in the years after they vacate the former age grade.

So far, so good as seven members of Ricken’s 2019 All-Ireland U20 winning side — Maurice Shanley, Paul Ring, Sean Meehan, Brian Hartnett, Colm O’Callaghan, Damien Gore, and Cathail O’Mahony — have already played senior championship. That figure rises to eight when you factor in Daniel O’Mahony who was full-back on last year's U20 team.

All eight are hugely capable footballers, but there's another important ingredient the Cork manager looks for when putting together a panel whose time at U20 will not be their last in a red shirt.

“Good people is everything because it is good people that sustain, they keep going. A good player is very fickle, it is very single-layered. It is just a veneer. The depth actually comes from your character,” begins Ricken, a GAA development officer at Munster Technological University.

“We have a huge emphasis on finding out their character and developing their character. I have two jobs and one job is completely done: I have found 36 players and I have done a lot of work with them in their development and in their personal development.

“I do think we are going to get a lot of footballers from this group going through to the seniors, as we have the last few groups. Some will go through almost immediately and some maybe will be slightly slow burners, but we have identified a number of guys that will contribute to Cork in the next 10 years. Even outside our matchday 24, you'll see in their long-term development that these guys will make a contribution.” 

His second job centres around a winning mentality, and fostering such.

A significant help here would be victory in this evening’s Munster U20 semi-final at home to Kerry (Páirc Uí Chaoimh, 7.30pm).

“It is a results-driven business. On that side of things, it is about players trying to go out on the field and get a win.

Ultimately, it is much easier in the developmental process if you have got players coming through who are used to winning or have won and know how to win.

“But it's not the be-all and it's not even at the top of the ladder, in lots of ways. More important is how they deal with a crisis, how they deal when things are going wrong.

“There are defining moments in all our lives. Most of them have been when things went wrong. So it is a case of what did we learn about ourselves from that, what's the moment that you grew, your growing moment.

“We don't want to be losing to have had a learning moment, you learn during winning too. You learn about yourself in the hard moments, and every championship game is a hard game.” 

A key part of this growth piece is players taking ownership inside the four white lines.

“We talk about the snowflake generation. A lot of the snowflake generation has been because we didn't give them ownership. When they do get ownership, they are the exact same as any other generation. Give them ownership and they'll take it. I'd be hopeful on Thursday night they'll take ownership.” 

Cork’s starting line-up for this evening’s semi-final contains four players from the county's 2019 All-Ireland minor winning team. They are half-back pair Adam Walsh-Murphy and Darragh Cashman and the half-forward pair of Conor Corbett and Jack Cahalane.

It is a quick return to action for Cahalane who was introduced as a second-half sub during Cork’s All-Ireland U20 hurling final win over Dublin last Saturday. Cork U20 football captain and midfielder Brian Hayes is another dual player who saw second-half action at UPMC Nowlan Park.

Cork (Munster U20FC v Kerry): G Creedon (Kilshannig); C O’Donovan (Newcestown), D Phelan (Aghada), C McGoldrick (Éire Óg); A Walsh-Murphy (Valley Rovers), T Walsh (Kanturk), D Cashman (Millstreet); B Hayes (St Finbarr’s), E Cooke (Ballincollig); C Corbett (Clyda Rovers), J Cahalane (Castlehaven), N Hartnett (Douglas); D Dorgan (Ballincollig), C Walsh (Kanturk), D Buckley (Newcestown).

Subs: C O’Leary (Douglas), N Lordan (Ballinora), D Holland (Argideen Rangers), L Horgan (Nemo Rangers), C O’Sullivan (Kilshannig), E Nash (Douglas), S O’Sullivan (Adrigole), C O’Hanlon (Buttevant), S McDonnell (Mallow).