U-20s hope to add to wonder season
Sligo take on Kildare at Cavan’s Kingspan Breffni Park
FROM their first Connacht U-20 title to this, their first All-Ireland U-20 semi-final. Winning the county’s first-ever provincial title in the U-20/U-21 grade was one thing; qualifying for a first national final at this level would be something else for a Sligo U-20 team. But that is what now stands before Sligo as the newly-crowned Connacht champions head to Cavan’s Kingspan Breffni Park on Saturday for a clash with Leinster winners Kildare (4pm start).
This particular group, guided by astute manager Dessie Sloyan and his capable backroom team, has already exuded enormous quantities of grit, with terrific displays of tenacity and skill to defeat both Roscommon and Mayo in recent weeks.
This reserve of resilience will most certainly have to be tapped into again on Saturday, as Sloyan anticipates a tough game against a Kildare outfit who defeated
Dublin 0-17 to 0-15 in last Thursday’s Leinster decider. Shane Farrell, Kildare’s wing-forward, was named Player of the Match. He is one to watch, so too Adam Fannin and Eoin Bagnall. The winners also had several useful substitutes, with match-turning replacements something that Sligo have benefitted from so far as well.
“We [the management] would be very happy about where the lads are at, in terms of their focus. To be honest, there hasn’t been any talk since of the Connacht final.
“But this game is coming around pretty quickly so we have to get our focus on that – it is back to business for us.”
While everything changed for Sligo GAA, especially its present and future, when team captain Jack Lavin kicked that winning goal, Sloyan hasn’t sensed anything different. They have another game, that’s all.
He stated: “We are lucky to have a driven bunch of lads, who want to win every game. That has been their outlook since the start of the year. “I would think that the pressure is off now because these guys have finally achieved something big, a Connacht title, and for some of them it is a second Connacht medal.”
“That is a huge positive and it should give us confidence going into this AllIreland semi-final. But we know the task that is ahead of us and we have to prepare well.
SLIGOVERSUSKILDARE
SLIGO: In a competition dominated by Mayo (25 titles), Galway (21 titles) and, to a lesser extent, Roscommon (10 titles), Sligo has won just one Connacht GAA U-20 Football Championship title (2022) and, at Minor level, have been provincial champions on three occasions – the third of which was last year. The county has never won an All-Ireland at Minor or U-20 level.
KILDARE: The Lilywhites have been Leinster GAA U-20 Football Championship winners on 12 occasions, just four behind Dublin. They’ve twice won the All-Ireland at this level (1965 and 2018). In the Leinster GAA Minor Football Championship, Kildare have won nine titles and featured in four successive finals (2013-16). They are yet to be crowned All-Ireland Minor champions.