AS TYRONE aim to land another knockout punch on Kerry, Colm Cooper admits that the Red Hands’ success in the lower weight classes is a cause for concern.
Tyrone have won three of the last four All-Ireland Under-20 titles, beating Kerry in this year’s semi-final and last year’s final.
And Kingdom senior boss Jack O’Connor described the Ulster county’s progress as ‘a big worry overall’ after they also got the better of Kerry to win a thrilling minor decider last weekend.
Cooper noted that underage glory ‘doesn’t guarantee anything’ as he cited his own county’s winning of a fifth consecutive minor crown in 2018.
But the five-time All-Ireland SFC winner reckons they will have to think long and hard about how to get back up off the canvas if Tyrone torch their Sam Maguire hopes this weekend.
He said: “Whatever they’re doing, they’ve got it absolutely right so it is a concern. I wouldn’t be overly drawn into the fact that it’ll end up with complete domination. I don’t think it will end up at that stage.
“But I would like to see other counties stepping up and winning.
“And if you look at the minor game the last day, it could have gone either way. Kerry could certainly have won that minor match so maybe the margins aren’t as big as we think they are.
“You would have to give great credit to Tyrone in terms of getting their underage systems and set-up right, because they’re market leaders in that from what I can see.
“Certainly for the general public and supporters like myself, it’s a concern if we’re driving down the road to Kerry on Saturday night if Tyrone have beaten you again and have beaten you at every grade. You’d have to have a review of everything that’s going on. But I don’t think the margins are that big for it to take over completely. We’ll wait on Saturday and hopefully — with my Kerry hat on — we won’t see utter domination from Tyrone.”
After Kerry ended Armagh’s reign as All-Ireland senior champions with a sensational second-half display last time out, O’Connor came out firing as he rounded on critics for ‘slating’ his team following their group-stage defeat to Meath.
On his former gaffer, Kerry icon Cooper said: “I was surprised maybe that he came out so ferociously.
“I suppose one thing it did was it indicated to me that he was probably stung by some of the criticism and it hurt a little bit, probably more so within the county than outside of it.
“But we’ve been down that road before in Kerry where things have been up and down a little bit and managers get attacked from every different quarter, be it supporters, ex-players and things like that.
“It’s probably something he needed to get off his chest and probably better that he did. Maybe, just maybe, he used it to motivate guys and telling fellas that we were being written off and written off by our own. But it certainly galvanised them and I just felt there was definitely fire in the belly the last day and I hope there’s plenty of it again this weekend.”
Tyrone were frequently a thorn in Cooper’s side during his playing days. After beating Kerry in the 2003 All-Ireland semi-finals, Mickey Harte’s men also foiled the Munster kingpins in the Sam Maguire deciders of 2005 and 2008.
The eight-time All-Star forward said: “Back in my time, Tyrone had a bit of a hoodoo over us . . . I don’t think there’s the same hang-up in terms of these teams because they’ve beaten each other at different times, Kerry winning the quarter-final a couple of years ago and Tyrone beating them in a semi-final before that.
“The rivalry will still be intense, particularly I suppose if you just look at this year.
“Tyrone have beaten Kerry in the Under-20s and they’ve beaten them in the minor final last weekend.
“Kerry won’t want to leave it happen three times in the one year. The intensity and the rivalry will certainly be there but it’s a little bit different than my time, I think.”
