Quillinan not buying Tyrone hex, lauds Ulster stuctures

The Kerry minor manager says provincial structures give Ulster side an advantage at the latter stages of championship.

Kerry manager Wayne Quillinan celebrates after the Electric Ireland GAA Football All-Ireland Minor Championship semi-final win over Mayo at Zimmer Biomet Páirc Chíosóg in Ennis, Clare. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

Kerry minor manager Wayne Quillinan doesn't believe in a Tyrone underage hex on the Kingdom, but he does feel Ulster teams have an advantage due to their provincial structures.

Quillinan wants his young guns to approach Sunday's MFC final at St Conleth’s Park (1:30pm) like any other game. 

“There’s always going to be pressure. There’s pressure in club games. There’s a bit more magnitude to this, but the way we’re approaching it is to just play the game. It’s another game. That’s what it is.

“The occasion is for supporters, for families, for the public. We’re trying to just talk to them, from a mindset thing, that it’s another game. It’s no different.

“We’re not asking much more out of the lads than we would have for the Mayo game, the Cavan game, or all the way along, the five games that we played. We’re not asking more, much more, out of them.

"Play the game that you’ve played all along, and try and just focus on what you need to do, your role within the team, and the job you’re doing for the team.

“If you can focus on that role, and just play the game, because they’ll always be nervous. I mean David Clifford was going out in Croke Park, and I’m sure he was going to be nervous.

“So we try and play it down, as much as you possibly can, and manage it as much as you possibly can. Try and get their energy to the spaces and the areas where they know and they’re familiar with, rather than going into spaces where they’re unfamiliar with.” 

Asked about the indian sign Tyrone have had over Kerry at minor and U20 level over the past four or five years, Quillinan maintains that Kerry are disadvantaged by the system.

“Number one is I rate Tyrone extremely highly. They've been favourites to win the All-Ireland since day one. This whole thing with the northern teams and stuff, I don't buy into it at all. You got to look at it at minor level, and I'm just going to go with minor level, it’s run the right way in my eyes. 

"They're going in now to their 13th competitive game. We're going into our sixth game. So that amount of preparation — you're talking about nerves in championship games — they're way more adapted to playing championship games than we are. 

"Now I'm not saying anything about it, that's just the way it is, we can't control that, and we just have to manage that.” 

He likes the Ulster system “It’s just run in a really good way that there are opportunities given to their players, to be together, to get that championship feel. But there's also the development side of things. 

"I have probably 10 guys there that haven't played championship football, because we have just six games to play. If we played for two years, we'd have the same amount of games as Tyrone would play."

It also affords Kerry plenty of opportunity to study their opposition, but that will be just a small part of the pre-match prep.

"My whole focus is 90% of what we do is going to be about ourselves.  

"Obviously, you have to tactically delve into Tyrone and the way they play and matchups and all that, but that'll be 10% to 15% of our work. The rest is simply getting better at what we need to do, compacting the middle, breaks around the middle, and all that kind of stuff.

"That's our message to the lads. It's just another game. We're simply asking you to get 10% better than we were against Mayo in key areas. I think we don't look at the outcome. We don't look at the winning or losing. We kind of look at the process.”