Young: Dubs build-up bigger than any other league game I’ve played in

KERRY star Killian Young agrees that the build-up to Saturday night’s league showdown with Dublin outstrips anything he has experienced in his career.

Young and his team-mates welcome a Dublin side looking to stretch their unbeaten record across league and championship to a record-breaking 34 games to Tralee on Saturday night.

And Young admits the build-up has been out of the ordinary.

“There’s a lot of excitement, I’d say within the last three weeks people have been talking about it because of the frenzy with tickets and the attendance on the night being about 12,500,” he said.

“The tickets are gone, well and truly sold out at this stage so that has brought a bit of excitement to the game because you normally have a build-up in the league of about two or three days if anything at all. So this is unusual and out of the ordinary but it shows the way the standard of the league is going and the excitement in the game itself has built around it. We are looking forward to it as a group of players.”

Kerry have followed a familiar pattern so far in this league, mixing the good with the bad including a pair of home defeats against Mayo and Monaghan.

EXPERIENCE

But Young insists the experience they are garnering now will stand to them later in the year.

“It (the league) has been eventful, we have won two and lost two from the Monaghan and Mayo games and that would be disappointing but it’s about overall development for the league as well.

“The talent is there, it’s just about nurturing them and giving them that game-time and putting them in at the deep end as such, that’s one way of putting it.

“When I started with Kerry myself it was probably 2006, my first league game was probably 2007 against Conor Mortimer, he was on top form at that time. You just need to learn the ropes that way.

“I suppose there’s only so many training sessions you can do. So it’s great to get these guys in and involved while they’re young and get that bit of experience for them.”

And he insists protecting the unbeaten record of the Kerry team of 1929-’32 won’t be a factor in their preparations.

“I haven’t been monitoring the unbeaten record at all. I don’t know the numbers but of course we’ll be looking to win on the night, it’s something we want to do.

“We set out to win every game and there’s home advantage too which is good and we’ll be hoping to use this to our advantage as well and hopefully win on the night.”