Another U20 campaign for Tom\u00e1s \u00d3 S\u00e9. Another campaign of pure frustration at the wildly contrasting and unequal provincial championship structures.<\/p>\n
Kerry begin their five-in-a-row Munster U20 bid away to Waterford this Thursday (Lemybrien, 7pm). The date on the calendar will read April 9.<\/p>\n
\u00d3 S\u00e9\u2019s gripe is that there are teams in Connacht and Ulster, who Kerry could very well meet later on in the championship, that opened their provincial account three weeks ago on March 18.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Those very same teams in Connacht and Ulster could end up playing six and seven games before landing into an All-Ireland semi-final.<\/p>\n
As for Leinster, which threw-in on March 25, there\u2019s the possibility for six games en route to provincial glory.<\/p>\n
And then there\u2019s Munster. The maximum number of games Kerry and Cork can play in their provincial championship is four, and two of those will be against Clare and Waterford on this occasion.<\/p>\n
\u00d3 S\u00e9’s frustration is two-pronged.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There\u2019s the ambition for short-term success and the need for long-term development, both of which are hindered by a format the Kerry boss described as \u201ctotally ludicrous\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going to go into it now because I’d keep you here for an hour, but the structure of it cracks me up,\u201d the Kerry boss began.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m looking at teams [up the country] getting four or five good championship matches, even Connacht who only have five teams in it have a brilliant structure to their championship because the teams are on level par with each other as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cYet we’re sitting here, and Cork are in the exact same boat, sitting and waiting and waiting and waiting and we didn\u2019t even know our first opponent a week out.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a totally ludicrous situation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In last year\u2019s Munster U20 edition, Tipp were seconds from dumping out Cork at P\u00e1irc U\u00ed Chaoimh and advancing to a provincial decider against Kerry.<\/p>\n
With Tipp part of the Phase 1 group, along with Clare, Limerick, and Waterford, the top two sides from this quartet have three championship games under their belt before they progress on to meet Cork and Kerry in Phase 2.<\/p>\n
Both inside and outside provincial borders, he feels it is somewhat weighted against Munster\u2019s strongest pair.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019ll be a time where Tipperary will come and beat Kerry and Cork in a championship, and they\u2019ll have seven games played coming out of Munster,\u201d continued \u00d3 S\u00e9, now in his fourth season at the helm.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was straight knockout before, and it was worse. You’d get only two games coming out of Munster.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’d love to be getting games, but you see, we can’t go anywhere for a challenge game for the last five or six weeks because nobody’s available, everybody else is playing. To be fair, Cork is in the same boat.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Locally, we can’t get clubs because the days that they are off from County League, they want to take the weekend off, so you can’t get a club team suitable there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00d3 S\u00e9 expects players from last year’s beaten All-Ireland minor final team to feature on Thursday, while also in the set-up are Eoin O’Flaherty, M\u00e1irt\u00edn McKivergan, Gear\u00f3id White, and Ronan Carroll from the Tralee CBS side that lost the Hogan Cup decider last month.<\/p>\n
\u00d3 S\u00e9\u2019s Kerry U20 panel, released on Tuesday, features seven starters from the side that came off second best to Tyrone in last year\u2019s All-Ireland semi-final.<\/p>\n
They are Gear\u00f3id Evans, Aodhna \u00d3 Beaglaoich, Daniel Kirby, Evan Boyle, Killian Dennehy, Tom\u00e1s Kennedy, and Paddy Lane.<\/p>\n
Kerry U20 panel: Adam Byrne (Dr Crokes), Alex Tuohy (Austin Stacks), Aodhna \u00d3 Beaglaoich (An Ghaeltacht), Barry Fitzgibbon (Kenmare Shamrocks), Ben Kelliher (Dr Crokes), Daniel Kirby (Austin Stacks), Dara Hogan (Milltown Castlemaine), Dara Stack (Kilcummin), David Mulvihill (Tarbert), David Sargent (John Mitchels), Eoin O\u2019Flaherty (Ardfert), Evan Boyle (Ballyduff), Gear\u00f3id Evans (Keel), Gear\u00f3id White (John Mitchels),Issac Brosnan (Castleisland Desmonds), Jack Joy (Ballymacelligott), Jack O\u2019Sullivan (Kenmare Shamrocks), Jamie Moynihan (Glenflesk), Joey McCarthy (Spa), John Curtin (Ballyduff), Kacper Robak (Dr Crokes), Killian Dennehy (Cordal), Mairt\u00edn McKivergan (Ballymacelligott), Marcus Clifford (Firies), Mark O\u2019Carroll (Dr Crokes), Michael Horan (Scartaglen), Michael Lynch (Milltown Castlemaine), Pa Walsh (Listowel Emmets), Paddy Lane (Austin Stacks), Paudie Finucane (Tarbert), Paudie Fitzgerald (Castlegregory), Ronan Carroll (Austin Stacks), Ronan Sheridan (Duagh), Ruair\u00ed Kennedy (Kerins O\u2019Rahilly\u2019s), Se\u00e1n \u00d3 Cuinn (An Ghaeltacht), Tom\u00e1s Kennedy (Kerins O\u2019Rahilly\u2019s). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Another U20 campaign for Tom\u00e1s \u00d3 S\u00e9. Another campaign of pure frustration at the wildly contrasting and unequal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[6937,61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-387535","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-kerry-gaa","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}