Respect please: Kerry U20 boss Tomás Ó Sé and Rossies manager Cian Smith blast midweek All-Ireland semis
Kerry Under 20 football manager Tomás Ó Sé has urged the GAA to do the right thing when it comes to the All-Ireland final against Tyrone and not to play it on a midweek date.The Kingdom edged Roscommon at Semple Stadium Wednesday night, and afterwards Ó Sé was adamant that the decider deserves a weekend fixture.“I just hope that the GAA do the right thing now, and give the final date the respect it deserves. We had six lads sitting exams today. One lad has had to defer it into August because he was due to sit it at 4pm. That’s wrong. They talk about well-being for players, and this shouldn’t be happening,” he stressed.“It’s an All-Ireland final. You have teams in that final now, from one end of the country to the other end, and there’s going to be a huge amount of travelling, and an overnight.“That game cannot be played midweek. I don’t know what they’re going to do with it, but they’d want to show a bit of respect to lads, and take that into account.“Tyrone are an extremely well organised team. They’ll be up for it. There’s no doubt about that. They are the kings of under-20 football in Ireland over the last five or six years. We’ll be up against it, but we’ll prepare as best we can. I just hope we get enough time to prepare properly.” Defeated Roscommon manager Cian Smith was just as forthright in his opinion on the scheduling of the U-20 championship. Win, lose or draw, he felt that this All-Ireland semi-final, never mind the final, should not have been fixed for midweek.“The bigger picture of the whole thing, and I was going to say this no matter how it went, it’s great to play in an All-Ireland semi-final, on a great pitch, in a great venue, but personally I think it’s absolutely disgraceful that it’s on a Wednesday night,” he said.“It’s absolutely crazy. This is supposed to be the second premier competition. It’s one thing playing Connacht championship round-robin on a Wednesday night. We’ve no problem at all with that, but ourselves and Kerry to have to come down here on a Wednesday night?“We had two guys today who couldn’t tog for us because they were doing exams in college. It’s absolutely scandalous for players, for supporters, and for management.“At the end of the day, we’re all volunteers. We all have day jobs. We all had to take half days for nearly two months on Wednesday nights. We love doing it, but the GAA really needs to think about promoting it.“Obviously an issue is senior players playing with U-20 squads but, at the end of the day, you’re either an U-20 or a senior. You’ll play senior for long enough.” SPECIAL K: Tomás Kennedy produced a stellar performance for Kerry's Under 20s three days after a Munster final start with the seniors. Pic: Paul Phelan/SportsfileOn the way that his side rebounded from losing a seven-point lead with around ten minutes of normal time left, the Kingdom manager was seriously impressed by the impact that Kerry got off the bench. That, and the three goals they buried, were the key factors in the eventual win.“They turned us over, and they got a couple of scores, and I think they also missed a few scores, so maybe we were lucky on that side of it in normal time,” he said.“The fear would be that they would drop the heads after losing the lead, and after being ahead, but we spoke and we said we’d stick to the same plan that we had, and that we’d knuckle down and go at it. They were in great spirits going out for extra-time.“In extra-time, we had a lot of tired bodies. Our lads, to be fair to them, for the first time this year, in a major way, they worked extremely hard. We were extremely organised defensively. It was that work-rate and attitude. There were spent bodies inside there and, when we went into extra-time, the subs that came in made a huge impact.“We knew we had to finish strong. Mairtín McKivergan, Paudie Finucane, Jack Joy, David Sargent, they all had outstanding games. Dara Hogan had a brilliant, brilliant game. We’re delighted with this, but we’d love to kick on.” Ó Sé was full of praise for the way that senior star Tomás Kennedy performed just three days after lining out for Jack O’Connor’s men in the Munster final in Killarney. His display, while carrying an injury from Sunday, epitomised the spirit within the group.“It was a huge, tough battle around the middle of the park, in terms of midfield and breaking ball. I thought Tomás Kennedy, after the knock he picked up at the weekend, was heroic. He came out, settled us down around the middle, and won great ball.“Killian (Dennehy) was man-of-the-match against Cork, and he was a huge loss coming in. We didn’t know coming up if Tomás Kennedy was going to be ok or not. I must give him great credit.“He has been brilliant. He’s been absolutely brilliant. It would be great now if Jack (O’Connor) could give him to us now between here and the final, and let us prepare away. We’ll see how we go with that as well.“There was a great spirit, and great togetherness, and a great willingness to work there today, which was very encouraging.”
