RS IN ARMS Kerry boss is Keane to play it cool
progress at times, with his big brother admitting: “He’s been in there three years now but it’s been a bit disjointed.
“The thing about Richie is he’s probbaly the most naturally talented out of the two of us.
“He would have been the main man at his age group in school and throughout underage with Tyrone.
“The body seemed to break down on him at a few vital stages in his career and that curtailed his progression onto the senior panel. He had an ex- tremely good year for the club in 2015, he was one of Tyrone’s best players in 2016 until injury cut that season short. From then on, it’s been stop start.”
Mattie’s position in the team has changed constantly since really arriving on the scene in 2013.
The Tyrone skipper won back-to-back All-stars in 2015 and 2016 and has played in just about every line in the team.
Since the early rounds of this year’s qualifiers, he has taken up home at centre half-back, probably his preferred position, with Richie also coming into the team around that time as a new focal point of the attack.
“His talent was never in doubt,” claims Mattie. “It was just building up the tolerance and capacity in the body to withstand inter-county football, and he’s been doing that.
“He’s diligent that way, there are a few players the same as him who would have to work to be robust enough, and it’s good to see him getting that reward with a prolonged run in the team.
“This run, I suppose, it’s not something myself and Richie would read much into because all we’ve ever known is playing with each other, but it’s nice for the family.
“It’s great for the club as well to have four players, two sets of brothers (along with Rory and Lee Brennan) it’s probably doubly nerving watching on but a great achievement for the club and our families.”
Mattie has never missed a Championship match for Tyrone through injury and says he could “count on one hand” the amount of training sessions he’s missed.
“Touch wood, I would consider myself quite robust and that’s something I’ve always prided myself on,” he adds. “The most important thing in football is being fit to play.
“You are coming in against extremely conditioned players so yours has to be at a high level – but it can never be at the expense of being fit to play.
“Dublin’s downfall will definitely not be their conditioning.
“They are good tacklers, well coached and their game management is unbelievable. The likes of Cian O’sullivan and those boys at the back, they have great football IQ in them.”
Kerry Galway
Tomorrow, Croke Pk, 1pm (TG4)
v KERRY minor boss Peter Keane insists his players are not getting bogged down by five-in-a-row talk.
Having gone 20 years without a minor title, Kerry won four on the trot up to last year before the competition was changed to under-17 this year.
Prior to this run, no county had even won fourin-a-row though Keane, who has been linked to the vacant senior manager’s job in Kerry, says the success of recent years has nothing to do with this bunch.
He said: “With regard to Dublin and their senior run, it is the same team.
“This is a different team each year so you can’t even look at that.
“These fellas had never played in Croke Park before [the semi-final]. All they want is to get a medal. That is all they want to do.
“Whatever some other fella has or did in the past, that is purely irrelevant. They know nothing about it.
“They were 12 when the first of these minor All-irelands was won.”
Part of Keane’s backroom team for the past three years has been former senior midfielder Tommy Griffin, who says the impact of reducing the age of eligibility has been particularly noticeable.
Griffin added: “It is different this year because some of the boys are 15 year olds and if you go back to the end of last year when we had the under-16 development squad gearing for this year, some were only 14, turning only 15 at the end of last year. They are only kids really.
“Last year we had lads like David Clifford and Diarmuid O’connor who were playing senior with their clubs while this year none of these lads would even be allowed on a club senior panel.
“It’s innocent football, it’s very open football, no sweepers, it’s very pure.”