Ulster U-20 Championship final
Tyrone v Cavan
Saturday, Brewster Park, 8pm

By Niall Gartland

CONFIDENCE is sky high in the Tyrone u-20 camp following their thrilling win over Donegal in the semi-final, but manager Paul Devlin knows that their Ulster final opponents Cavan aren’t to be taken for granted.

The Red Hands showed tremendous courage and skill as they claimed a 3-16 to 2-16 win over Donegal after extra-time, and it’s obvious from recent training sessions that the players have been energised by such a significant result.

Speaking at last week’s launch event, Devlin said: “It was just a matter of letting them enjoy the moment, and then get back into action on Tuesday night.

“The lads were brilliant in training, and the intensity of the training here on Tuesday night was excellent.

“They really pushed the boat out and they really tested each other up here in Garvaghey, not just the 15 or 20 lads that were involved in the game.

“ It was the whole panel, even the lads that were sitting up in the stand at Celtic Park, the effort they were putting in was brilliant.

“So they’re really driving each other on, that’s the big aspect we took out of the Tuesday night.

“For a bunch of lads to do what they did was brilliant, and we were out on Sunday morning doing a wee bit as well.”

Much has been made of the fact that promising young players Ruairi Canavan, Michael McGleenan, Conor Cush and Steve Donaghy are all sons of former Tyrone greats. Devlin points out that they aren’t the only ones steeped in Tyrone GAA, however.

“There’s good DNA there, but you have that running right through the panel. Ciaran Daly’s father Conor played for Carrickmore for years, a superb player. You have Niall Devlin, his father Gerard was one of the stars of that good Coalisland team of the late eighties, early nineties.

“There’s a lot of the lads with backgrounds of strong football links with football with club and county.

“But these lads are out to make their own name, work hard and see where it takes them.

“It’s nice at the end of a game to see the parents coming out and embracing them and enjoying the whole occasion.”

Cavan’s run to the Ulster u-20 final has come as something of a surprise given their tepid record at underage level in recent years, but they aren’t in the final by any sort of fluke.

They got the better of age-old rivals Monaghan in the first round, before claiming a huge win over a stacked Derry team in the semi-finals. They limited the Oakleafers to only nine points, and Tyrone will have to box clever if they’re to come out on top this weekend.

Devlin said: “At the start of the year you would have looked at the Monaghan team and the Derry team as two strong teams you would expect to push through on that side of the draw.

“So a lot of respect has to be given to Cavan for where they’re at. They have turned both of those teams over, and it’s going to be one tough challenge for us on Friday, because Cavan are at the top of the game.

“They turned over teams with a lot of All-Ireland and Ulster Minor medals, and for them to go and do that, it just shows you the work that’s being put in there in Cavan.

“They’re confident in their ability, they have confidence in the coaching staff and everything they have around them.

“They take one step at a time and you can see that they have done that. They have knocked out two teams that were probably favourites for the competition, going by what they did at minor level.

“So a lot of credit has to go to them, they’re a serious outfit and we have to give them full respect and we’ll have to be fully focused on the work we have done so far.”

Devlin led Tyrone to the Ulster U-20 title in both 2019 and 2020, so this is their third final in four years and the conveyor belt seems to be chugging along nicely.

Many of his former players, like Darragh Canavan and Brian Kennedy, are starring at senior level and that’s what it’s all about at the end of the day.

“There’s a lot of work being done, with lads coming through the academies, but there are lads that have been missed, who maybe are late developers.

“The likes of Eoin Corry, Brian Conway and Caolan McGinty, lads who have never played at u-17 level, and it’s great to see those lads stepping forward and making a name for themselves, gettig into the team and playing well.”

READ MORE – Cavan manager Damien Donohoe. Click here…