A year which began with Cork's inter-county football outlook in the depths of despair ended in optimism. There were two reasons: They won the 2019 minor All-Ireland and U20 All-Ireland.
The man behind the latter triumph was Keith Ricken and he remains at the helm for this year's championship.
"You have the honour of dealing with young people and you have the responsibility of dealing with young people and they weigh heavily, you know?" Ricken said at the launch of the EirGrid U20 Football Championship.
"You have these young lads and they are between 17 right up to going on to 20 and they’re open minded, enthusiastic, full of life, in general a very, very clever bunch, they’re well educated and you can’t bluff them.
"They’re at a stage of life where you’re trying to form them into the next part and my job as I see it, and why I got involved is that we are deemed to have a shortage of guys able for the next step-up, so our job is to produce the type of player that is humble, grounded, organised and has his stuff together and is able to play football and contribute.
"Our job is to make sure that we have 25 guys coming through every year who have come through a good process, they want to be involved in something, proud to wear the Cork jersey and they’re grounded and focused and know the importance of the group and the team, know the responsibility of the individual and what they bring to us, the responsibility of being able to lose and being able to win."
On hand to launch the 2020 EirGrid GAA Football U20 All-Ireland Championship at Croke Park in Dublin, are, Mark Cronin of Cork and Cork manager Keith Ricken. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
This year's U20 Championship will finish far earlier than last year. The semi-finals will take place on St Patrick's Day with the final a fortnight later.
"Last year we had five months together, this year it’s four and the last month of that is taken up with county leagues, Under-21 with their club, lads are playing freshers with their colleges or with their schools," Ricken said regarding the new schedule.
"I get requests to release players and I laugh at that because it’s like I’m a prison warden – I never have and never will stop a lad playing with a club. You are from your club, your club jersey is the jersey that goes with you at the very end, your club colleagues are the ones who will take you to your very final destination; your club is everything and I would never have a young lad disrespect his club. Once that starts, that’s a rot in the GAA and we can’t have that.
"We really get hung up on how important we can be, or how important we think we can be, as managers. And I hate the term manager and it really gets to me because it’s like you’re someone important. What’s important is what’s in front of you and your job is to bring out the best of them.
"If it’s about you, you’ll never do that. If it’s person-centred, and that’s what I advocate, it does exactly what it says at the tin and they’re (the players) first and they need to be playing with their clubs. They don’t need to be training seven nights a week and we don’t need a backroom staff of 55 people.
"If Johnny Murphy runs them up and down the mountain and they win, does that mean everyone has to run them up and down the mountain? We’re (Cork U20s) big into building our own character and building our own stuff and if it’s good enough it’s good enough and if it’s not it’s not.
"My job is to have 30 Cork players this year and to have them more skilled, more educated and more grounded than they were when the came in – end-of. If they win along the way, great. Being winners doesn’t make them good, what makes them good is the character. If you need to win to be good, it’s very fickle. Building character is from the inside out and that’s what we’re trying to do.
"The only thing about this year is that it’s over very early and I don’t know what our selectors are going to do because they love coming in – they have great craic. Everyone gets on and it’s an enjoyable place to be and that’s the way it should be.
"It’s a beautiful thing to be on a Cork team, or any county team, and be able to represent your county, isn’t it? Fantastic. There’s enough stuff in life that is going to be tough and hard, this isn’t going to be one of them. There’ll be tough times through it, but it shouldn’t be tough and hard – it should be an enjoyable experience."
EirGrid, the state-owned company that manages and develops Ireland's electricity grid, has been a proud sponsor of the U20 GAA Football All-Ireland Championship since 2015. #EirGridGAA.
Top photo by Matt Browne/Sportsfile
