Ballina’s Charlie King will skipper the Tipperary U20 Footballers for the second successive year.Photo: Bridget Delaney

Experienced Tipp squad for U20 Football campaign

GAA: Dalata Hotel Group Munster Under 20 Football Championship Preview

Published: Fri 7 Mar 2025, 8:38 AM

By Thomas Conway

LIMERICK v TIPPERARY

Mick Neville Park, Rathkeale

Saturday, 8th March

Throw-in @ 2.00pm

Referee: Conor Maguire (Clare)

The GAA is well able to get things wrong, and is sometimes branded as conservative, but there are plenty of innovative thinkers within the organisation who deserve credit for getting things right as well.

Take the Munster Under-20 football championship for instance. The competition is engineered in such a way that the so-called second-tier counties (Tipperary, Clare, Limerick, and Waterford) are afforded the opportunity to maximise their game-time and benefit most in terms of player development.

The championship is structured in two phases: phase one consists of a group of the four aforementioned teams. Games are played on a round-robin basis, and the top two teams emerge from the group to qualify for phase two. Phase two is also a round-robin group format, consisting of Cork, Kerry, and the two sides which qualify from phase one (last year it was Tipp and Clare). The top two teams then progress to the Munster final.

Genius. Now, you could be cynical and argue that Kerry have still won the last three Munster titles in the grade, but for Tipperary selector Colm O’Brien, the benefits which accrue from such a structure are self-evident.

“Look, you’re guaranteed three matches, and really, if your year goes any way right you should have six matches,” he said.

“Isn’t that great, you certainly can’t complain about it. And another thing is, the two teams that go into phase two, to play Kerry and Cork, they’re battle-hardened because they have three games already under their belt. So, I think that gives teams a chance to turn one of the big dogs over.”

Could Tipp, managed by Niall Fitzgerald for a third year, be the team to topple Cork or Kerry this season? It’s a possibility. Fifteen players from last year’s squad are eligible again for this campaign, meaning the panel has plenty of experienced heads, including senior players Charlie King (Ballina, captain), Robbie McGrath (Galtee Rovers) and Joe Higgins (Clonmel Commercials). O’Brien - a Burgess man who briefly played senior football for Tipperary alongside Fitzgerald and also managed Dublin senior side Round Towers for two years - is optimistic about their prospects, but explains that the emphasis is still on development. “We’ve sort of taken a bit of a developmental attitude to the panel,” O’Brien says.

“As in, when we were picking 35 for the panel, we wanted to build a base of younger players. So, if you were 20 years of age, we wanted you to be a starter, and if you weren’t going to be a starter, we wanted a seventeen or eighteen year old in your place. So we have a lot of younger lads, and ok, they might not set the world alight this year, but we’re hoping that once they’re part of the set-up for a year or two, they’ll be well established and that bit more mature in their football once they reach their final year.”

Tipperary begin their campaign away to Limerick this Saturday in Ballyagran, before welcoming Clare to FBD Semple Stadium on March 15th and Waterford to Clonmel Sportsfield on March 22nd. O’Brien feels there’s potential in this group, not only in terms of challenging in this under-20 championship but also with regard to the Tipp senior team further down the line.

“Now is a good time for young lads to be breaking through, and I think there’s definitely seven or eight lads that could go on to the senior panel within the next year or two. And not only that, I think they’ll be good senior footballers,” O’Brien concluded.