WHEN Jack O’Connor guided Kerry minors to an All-Ireland in 2014, it was their first in 20 years and only their fifth since 1964.
Two hours later, Eamonn Fitzmaurice guided the county to their 17th senior All-Ireland in the same 50-year timespan.
Kerry’s minor record is the anomaly to end anomalies.
They have never placed reliance on good minor teams to the extent others had. But amidst a fairly barren run at senior level, they resolved to alter that and won an unprecedented five All-Ireland minor titles in a row.
Kerry have won just one senior All-Ireland since.
Last Sunday, Dylan Geaney’s late cameo against Meath made him the first member of their 2018 All-Ireland winning minor team to play senior championship football, as predicted earlier in the year by Karol Dillon, a PhD student at University of Limerick who had analysed those Kerry teams.
With those good enough quickly promoted to senior, Kerry didn’t reach a single All-Ireland U20 or U21 final off those teams.
David Clifford and Sean O’Shea are only 25. Young enough to win plenty more but there’s no signage that points to this Kerry generation coming anywhere near matching what Dublin did in the previous decade.
The Dubs’ latest minor crop face Derry this weekend having lost last month’s provincial decider to Longford.
As relatively rare as All-Ireland minor titles have been for Dublin - just one since 1984 - the value of that doesn’t compare to what a first Leinster title at any grade for 14 years means to Longford.
Trophies help some more than others, but there’s more to it.
“The winning of a minor championship or a 20s championship means a lot to the people involved but in reality, the most important thing for that group is that they get really good exposure to a really good development system, and they all get better and want to keep playing,” says Rob Mulcahy, a Kerry native who is Head of Performance for Clare GAA.
He has compiled fascinating research around the development of players.
The annual Tony Forristal tournament is big business for U14 hurling in Munster.
Mulcahy tracked every player selected as part of a Tony Forristal squad in Clare across a 30-year period from 1985 to 2016.
Less than 5 per cent of players, at an average of 1.4 per year, went on to have an established senior inter-county career while just under 10 per cent ever made a senior panel at all.
Eye-catchingly, almost 25 per cent of them never went on to play senior hurling for their clubs.
Mulcahy is in the process of trying to build a database through a survey put out to players by the GPA on the pathways that have brought players to senior inter-county.
It will hopefully add clarity on the exact figures but it’s generally accepted that the most common pathway for players is through the county development squads.
Yet when you see a figure that an average of just one player out of every year group in Clare made it over a 30-year period does that beg a question as to whether they’re worth the investment of time and money?
“It’s people understanding that it’s not a farm for elite players, it’s a system for everyone that’s involved in it,” he says.
“The model in the GAA at the moment is ‘as many as possible for as long as possible and as good as possible’.
“I think you have to have a really good, fun, enjoyable environment focussed massively on the development of the player in every facet – sports psychology, nutrition, strength and conditioning, tactical development.
“And if they don’t make it to the senior team, they go and play for the club and have a huge impact on the club structures.”
The statistic from the 30-year piece that one-quarter of players of the best U14 hurlers in Clare had quit before they made their senior club team naturally sets off alarm bells.
Mulcahy tracked the U14 players that Clare took in five years ago, who became eligible for senior club for the first time in 2023.
98 per cent of them – all barring one player – have made an appearance for their club’s senior team.
“For me, that’s a bigger success than transitioning to a senior inter-county team.”
The ambition to some day play for your county will forever remain the cornerstone of it all.
Such a small percentage of players come through to achieve that, but even fewer make it without coming through development squads.
It’s too early in the lifespan of U20 and U17 competitions, which were only introduced to replace U21 and U18 in 2018, to be definitive about whether that change has made any difference to the number of players progressing to senior.
What is certain is that as those age grades have moved one way, the age profile of players establishing themselves in a senior county team has gone the other.
Whereas the gap from minor to senior was once maybe from 18 to 20 or 21, it’s now from 17 to possibly closer to 22 or 23.
Breaking through at senior level now requires extreme patience.
The average age at which a member of Donegal’s starting Ulster final team made their championship debut was 20.3 years, but it took the majority at least another two years to establish themselves.
“The developmental pathway to make a senior inter-county player is a little bit longer than it used to be, in most cases, because the player has more components of the game to develop,” says Jack Cooney, the GAA’s National Player Development Lead and former Westmeath boss.
“If you look at an U17 team now, they look like garsúns compared to a senior team, they look so young that they do need more time to develop physically.
“There’s no magic button you can hit, it just takes time for their bodies to develop, and their game awareness and intelligence.
“It’s more complex than just winning a minor or U20 All-Ireland, it doesn’t guarantee you anything,” says Cooney.
The conditioning gap has become increasingly difficult to bridge without that patience to stay in the inter-county pathway right up until you either break through or make way.
But development squads only give you a better chance.
Derry’s minors take on Dublin this weekend. The Oak Leafers are fancied for another All-Ireland having won it last year and in 2020. They’re on a remarkable that includes eight Ulster minor finals in ten years.
Yet the conveyor belt has been slow to add depth to the senior panel. They took Tyrone’s U20s to penalties this year, perhaps should have won, and watched the Red Hands go on to win a second All-Ireland in three years.
Generally, though, Derry haven’t converted minor success to U20, either in terms of trophies or handing players straight to a senior panel.
Tyrone have had more joy that way.
Shea O’Hare, player of the year this season at the grade, made his senior debut off the bench last week while Niall Devlin, Ciaran Daly, Ruairi Canavan and Seanie O’Donnell have all made impacts coming off the 2022 U20 team.
Offaly won an All-Ireland U20 in football three years ago and eight of that team played in this year’s championship. They went out in the group stage of the Tailteann Cup, looking as far away as ever.
“It’s not one size fits all,” says Cooney.
“It’s all dependent on each county, on their demographics, their club system, their school system and their player development programme.”
The only guarantee is that there are no guarantees.