Cork U20 football boss Ray O'Mahony on big win over Clare which booked Munster final spot

THE Cork footballers booked a place in the EirGrid Munster U20 football championship final last evening.

The Rebels got the better of Clare on a scoreline of 5-18 to 0-13 at a sun-splashed SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Cork will now meet Kerry in the provincial decider next Wednesday as the Leesiders aim to win the title for the first time since 2021 and in the process derail the Kingdom from claiming three-in-a-row.

The win was obviously the main objective against the Banner County who were without any points prior to making their way down to Leeside after they lost two out of two in the group stage. But the most pleasing aspect was the performance in what was a much improved all round display from the previous outing in the four-point defeat to Kerry. There was a flatness to the Rebels display in that one, but there were no signs of that yesterday.

Manager Ray O’Mahony was a satisfied figure speaking in the bowels of the stadium after the big victory over Clare.

“Our objective this evening was to win and give us a chance to have another go off our rivals across the county bounds,” says the Éire Óg club man.

“All we could do was play what was in front of us. To be fair to Clare, they obviously had two defeats from the two group stage games coming into this one and maybe their heads were down a little bit. We were fully aware that we had to have our guard up. We have seen a lot of funny results at this grade up the country over the last number of weeks.

“We prepared really well for it and we did what we had to do. In terms of learnings from this game, we had a few new players that started this evening and got runs that we hadn’t seen before. Our goalkeeper Aaron Mannix was excellent, Gearóid Kearney and Trevor Kiely came on and did well. It was a very good team performance. You would just have to be happy with it.” 

The new round-robin format that has been brought in this year at U20 football level in Munster has been beneficial for every team and O’Mahony feels regardless of what will happen next week, the new system will help the players.

“The players are young lads becoming men,” he said.

“You look at Clare this evening, they are after six championship matches all together between phase 1 and phase 2 and have had a really good campaign. From our own perspective, we have got three competitive games under the belt. We still weren’t guaranteed anything before this evening’s encounter. We had to go out and perform and get a result.

“We have used 26 players in the championship so far, that’s just brilliant. The players are getting game time and I can see myself the improvement our lads have made over the last few months.” 

The Cork boss is very happy with his squad as the Rebels head for Tralee next Wednesday for the Munster final against Kerry with throw-in at 7.30pm.

“We went through a fairly rigorous trial process back in October. David Buckley came through that having never put on the Cork jersey before, Aaron Mannix and Fionnán Leahy were the same. There’s lots of talent in this county.

“When we cross the line we are serious, but we have fun too and that’s important. At the end of the day, playing for Cork doesn’t put a roof over their heads or put bread on the table. All 36 players have given it everything and we as a management team are really pleased with the squad we have. We are ready for this.” O’Mahony concluded.