By Niall Gartland
TYRONE u-20 manager Paul Devlin hopes that their gruelling run to provincial honours will stand them in good stead for Sunday’s All-Ireland semi-final showdown against Kerry.
The Red Hands fell short at the last-four stage in 2019 and 2020, but this current crop certainly showed their mettle in a character-building Ulster Championship campaign, claiming hard-fought victories over Down, Donegal and Cavan.
It remains to be seen whether they can book their first All-Ireland final since the u-20 grade was introduced back in 2018, but if they don’t, it won’t be for a lack of effort.
Devlin said: “They’re a very close bunch of lads who have knitted well together. There’s a lot of new faces involved and getting over the line in tough games has helped bring everyone together.
“There’s no better way to build character than coming through tight games of football, we had three tough games in Ulster and you have to give them a lot of credit for that.”
The three main men on the management team (Devlin, Dermot Carlin and Owen Mulligan) all have experience of playing in All-Ireland finals in their own playing days, so they’ll have plenty of knowledge to impart ahead of Sunday’s game. Things didn’t go to plan in their previous two semi-final clashes, which was naturally a source of considerable disappointment, but Devlin hopes that it will be a case of third time lucky.
“We know what it’s like to get to finals but it’s up to the lads on the day to do the business, and you need the rub of the green as well.
“In 2019 we’d a couple of unlucky calls, we were up by six or seven points and Cork got two quickfire goals. You do need that bit of luck but we’d be hopeful that if we work hard enough, things will fall our way.”
Tyrone pipped Cavan in the Ulster final nearly a fortnight ago by a single point. A string of Ruairi Canavan frees proved the difference on the day, but Devlin says they’re hopeful they’ll show a bit more cutting edge up front this weekend.
“We did need those frees but they still had to be taken so fair play to Ruairi.
“We missed a couple of good chances as well, but with young lads it’s all about learning, and running them over those wee scenarios again.
“Sometimes lads have to go through that moment of not taking the simple score to realise what the management are talking about, and hopefully next time they make the right decisions when the opportunities present themselves.”
The Ulster Championship was a particular source of delight to the many players on the team who hadn’t won much at county level in their burgeoning careers. Devlin says it isn’t necessarily a case of bringing them back down to earth for the Kerry game.
“Well, it’s important they realise that they need to go again, but they’ve got that bit of confidence from coming through that tough battle and now it’s about pushing them on to the next challenge.
“Now the lads are at the pitch of battle, why would we want to bring them back down for?”
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