Under 21s ready

training, we have the Crokes guys back as well after their great win in Croke Park, so, in general, we are good to go.

“There’s fellas who won’t maybe make the panel that started in some of the previous games. It’s tough on them, but look, we have to put our best foot forward and try and pick what we consider a panel that will try and win the game for us, and obviously having the Crokes lads back is a big bonus.

“We took a bit of a chance last year, we threw in a lot of the lads just gone minor. We have a couple of nineteen year olds this year again, obviously, the likes of Seanie O’Shea, and that, and maybe, the age profile is better this year and you would just be hoping that the experience of last year would stand to them.”

Kerry haven’t a great record in Cork in this particular competition and, it could well be a decisive factor.

“We are going up to Pairc Uí Rinn which is a tough place for a Kerry team to win. It’s twenty years since we beat them up there. The last time the likes of Tomas Ó Sé, Eamonn Fitzmaurice, Denis O’Dwyer, fellas like that were playing that time, and, that was a very hard fought win.

“We got through by two points and David Moloney from Dr Crokes saved a last minute penalty from Fionan Murray, so that was a fierce tight battle and I feel next Wednesday night’s game is going to be something similar, very tight.

“It’s [Pairc Ui Rinn] a bit of an advantage, you would always prefer to be playing at home, even the crowd can sway a few decisions here and there, so, we would just be hoping and I suppose for a share of our fellows it’s like a home game, we have nine, ten fellows in Cork, so, we would hope that it works to our advantage.

“I wouldn’t really see us as favourites. I would see this as very much a fifty / fifty game. I am not just saying that, you have very much the same players involved that you had involved last year.

“There’s ten or twelve from both sides involved again this year, and, obviously Cork were better than us last year in Tralee. I know that down in Pairc Uí Caoimh three years ago in the minors, there was very little in that game when we played them, you saw the game two years ago in Tralee that went to extra time, it took heroics by Marc O’Connor to pull us out of the fire that night, so we feel these are two very evenly matched teams and it’s just who plays better on the night, and maybe gets the bounce of the ball that will have the winning the game.

“We have good scoring power up front, but usually the battle is won around the middle eight, around the middle of the field, both sides of the kick out, so, I think it will be something similar.

“Whichever team gets possession, most of the possession from the restarts has a great chance of winning the game. We have this group together for the bones of three years and we are just hoping that the time we spent together will bear fruit the next night.”