Tomás Ó Sé picking Kerry on spark and vibes for Tyrone test

The Kingdom great takes his U20 side to Croke Park to face a Tyrone team with an "innate confidence" and a love of playing Kerry

Kerry U20 manager Tomás Ó Sé on Tomás Kennedy: "He’s a very grounded young fella, and he doesn’t get above his station." Pic: Paul Phelan/Sportsfile

Kerry U-20 football manager Tomás Ó Sé has heaped praise on star attacker Tomás Kennedy for the way he has managed to juggle commitments to his squad, and to the Kingdom’s senior panel, throughout the season.

The Kerins O’Rahillys’ youngster missed the underage side’s Munster opener as he was on the seniors’ pre-championship training camp in Portugal, but his influence has been vital for Ó Sé’s side in the four matches since then.

Indeed, just three days after he started in the Munster senior final against Cork in Killarney, Kennedy managed to play 80 minutes-plus in the U-20s extra-time triumph over Roscommon, scoring 1-3 as they advanced to today’s final against Tyrone (5pm).

“Tomás carried an injury into the semi-final, and he was brilliant, to be fair to him. I can’t speak highly enough of Tomás. He’s a very grounded young fella, and he doesn’t get above his station,” said Ó Sé.

“You see some fellas that go into inter-county squads, then at club level and at underage inter-county level, you might see that in them, in a kind of confident way. He doesn’t do that. He just does the best he can for each group.

“The seniors have been very good, and very fair to us. I can’t ask any more. I’ve had him for a couple of sessions, they’ve had him for a couple of sessions. I’m delighted with him, and he’s fierce committed to the 20s.

“He’s grown up with a lot of them. He’s played a lot of underage football with a lot of them. He’s gone to school with an awful lot of them.” 

Kennedy made his first U-20 appearance of the campaign in the one-point (0-10 to 0-9) group stage loss to Cork at Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Having avenged that defeat in the provincial decider, followed by the semi-final epic with Roscommon, Ó Sé has been pleased with the response.

“If you had asked that down in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, if we would have got to an All-Ireland final, it’s not that I would have laughed at you but, as the championship progressed, we got our full group back, and we worked away with them,” added the An Ghaeltacht man.

“We got great work done as the matches were actually happening, so it was a credit to the management and the team to actually get through the battles we had, against Cork, and then to get over Roscommon. Were Tyrone ever on the horizon? No.

“They’re in the final now, and we’ll deal with it. We are dealing with it, and I’m looking forward to it. I always look forward to games. I was never, when I was playing or managing, saying 'Jesus no'. We’ll go out, and we’ll try to get as good a performance out of it.

“We got our few tough matches, and we have been collectively together since then, and we’ve made huge progress as a team. As a group, I think we’ve done very well, and have progressed nicely throughout the championship, and have got better every game.

“Are there areas that we need to improve on and focus on? Of course there are. Hopefully we’ll be able to focus in on them, and see where we land then when we play Tyrone.” 

Against Roscommon last time out, it was the bench impact of players like Mairtín McKivergan, Jack Joy, Seán Ó Cuinn, Dara Hogan, Paudie Finucane and David Sargent that proved crucial for Kerry. The Kingdom boss knows it has to be a squad effort at Croke Park.

“It just gives the lads confidence, and we’ve been open, no squad has been the same, no team has been the same. We’ve gone on form. Lads that have been going well inside in training have been picked, and that’s very hard to do because you’re only going from week to week.

“You can’t play a lot of football in the sessions that you’re actually playing, so if you see a spark off a young fella, and you talk to that young fella, and get a vibe off him, you say yeah, I think we will get something off him, and you go with it,” stressed Ó Sé.

Tyrone have won three of the last four All-Ireland U-20 titles – beating Ó Sé’s Kerry in the 2024 final and last year’s semi-final. Will it be third time lucky this evening? It will take a monumental effort to subdue the Red Hand county.

“Tyrone are very well coached, they’re very well managed. They wouldn’t have been favourites above in Ulster this year. I’d say there were two or three teams rated above them. They have that innate confidence, and it’s a great thing to watch.

“They don’t care who they’re playing. They will go out and play their game, and they’ll focus on themselves. They’ll have their homework done. They’ll attack you as hard as they can, and they have the players to do it.

“They have extremely good players again, and they love playing Kerry, so that’s the challenge. It’s a nice challenge to have.”