Minor captain Padraig braced for the Kingdom

THIS Sunday at the impressively refurbished St Conleth’s Park of Newbridge, Tyrone will go in pursuit of a ninth ever All-Ireland Minor Championship title.

Kerry stand in their way but Tyrone have become accustomed to winning, winning and winning again since their very first competitive outing of the season back in the middle of March.

They haven’t lost a single game, though there have been quite a number of moments where they stood on the cliff-edge. Thankfully, they always pulled their way back from the brink.

The Kingdom are in the final for a reason though – they edged a thrilling semi-final contest over Mayo a fortnight ago on a scoreline of 1-19 to 3-10, showing impressive composure and decision-making to qualify for their first final at this level since 2020.

You have to go back a full half-century for the first of two occasions where Tyrone and Kerry have met in an All-Ireland Minor final and there were plenty of future stars on show that day.

Kerry won the 1975 showdown comfortably enough by 1-10 to 0-4 calling upon the likes of Jack O’Shea, Sean Walsh, Mick Spillane and Charlie Nelligan. Tyrone likewise fielded a team with future senior stalwarts like Damien O’Hagan, Ciaran McGarvey and Aidan Skleton.

Then in 2004, they met again, and on this occasion there was a happier outcome for Tyrone as they edged matters by 0-12 to 0-10.

Hoping to get his hands on the Tom Markham Cup is Carrickmore lad and Tyrone team captain Padraig Donaghy. It’s been a memorable journey to this final but make no mistake about it: they want to go on and finish the job.

“That’s one thing about this group, we push high standards for ourselves. Getting to this point was a goal from the start of the year. There’s huge excitement now so hopefully we’ll go out and give it our all. It’s the last game of the season so hopefully we can go out and get the win,” he said.

“It’s a long campaign with potentially a lot of backdoors. We’re lucky we’ve won all our games, so we missed out on extra games and have had more training. I think it’s stood to us and the lads have grown together since back in March.”

The Tyrone U20s have shown the way in recent years having won three of the last four All-Ireland titles at that grade, a remarkable achievement. Now the minors want to follow in their footsteps with what would be a ninth ever title at this level.

Padraig added: “The minors have been competitive but maybe haven’t been winning as much. The U20s have won their Ulsters and their All-Irelands, and it’s good that the minors are on a run. It’s 15 years since our last one so we’re excited to be in this position.”