Galway Manager Donal O'Faharta named Manager Of The Year
Galway Captain Jack Glynn named Player Of The Year
Eirgrid have announced the top twenty players from last year’s All-Ireland U20 Football Championship with All-Ireland Champions Galway providing six of the twenty along with Captain Jack Glynn being named Player Of The Year and Manager Donal O’Faharta named Manager Of The Year.
This is the sixth year of the player awards and second year of the EirGrid Manager of The Year awards with the recipients being selected by the Gaelic Writers Association. The awards are run by EirGrid to recognise the incredible talent, dedication and hard work displayed by those involved in this competition. EirGrid, the state-owned company that is delivering a cleaner energy future for Ireland, has been a proud partner of the GAA since 2015 when it first began sponsoring the U21 Football All-Ireland Championship before the competition evolved into to U20 grade.
The Tribesmen’s efforts in the competition have been reflected with six players from the All-Ireland winning panel selected as worthy recipients of a 20 U20 award. These are Conor Flaherty, Jack Glynn, Conor Raftery, Paul Kelly, Matthew Tierney and Tommo Culhane.
Having played a critical defensive role in keeping Dublin’s top scorers at bay in the All Ireland final, Galway captain Jack Glynn was the tournament’s standout player and has been named the 2020 EirGrid Under 20 Football Championship Player of the Year.
Galway Manager Donal Ó Fátharta has been named as the EirGrid Manager of the Year after leading his squad to provincial and All-Ireland victories, despite it only being his first year in charge, and claiming the county’s first U20 title since 2013. Ó Fátharta worked tirelessly to grow and develop the skills of the young Galway team though this difficult year and his dedication paid off on the pitch.
All-Ireland finalists, Dublin, have four players included in this year’s list. These are Lee Gannon, Mark Lavin, Lorcan O’Dell and Ciarán Archer as do Ulster Champions, Tyrone with Darragh Canavan, Cormac Munroe, Ethan Jordan and Tiernan Quinn making the top 20. Sean O’Brien, Dan McCarthy and Ruairi Ó Beaglaoich are representing Kerry on the panel with the remaining three slots going to Laois’s Ronan Coffey, Cork’s Blake Murphy and Aaron Doherty of Donegal.
Commenting on the awards, Uachtarán Chumann Lúthchleas Gael, John Horan said; “I commend all of the players honoured on this list but also all of those who competed in the EirGrid GAA Football U20 All-Ireland Championship in 2020 giving the testing set of circumstances everyone involved faced.
As ever with this grade of football the talent on show was difficult to ignore and I have no doubt that many of the names that feature on this list will have aspirations of further county representation in years to come.
“Thank you to EirGrid for their ongoing support of the GAA and their creativity in helping us to promote this competition and we look forward to working with them in 2021.”
Michael Mahon, Chief Infrastructure Officer at EirGrid, commented: “On behalf of all at EirGrid, I would like to extend our congratulations to the 20 players honoured on today’s prestigious list. The talent we witnessed in the 2020 championship was incredible and each of these young players did their counties proud during such an unprecedented time. We are also delighted to give special recognition to the EirGrid U20 Player of the Year, Galway’s Jack Glynn, and EirGrid Manager of the Year, Donal Ó Fátharta, who are both part of the All-Ireland winning team
Well done and thank you to all of those involved who made the EirGrid GAA Football U20 All-Ireland Championship a success. These awards allow us to acknowledge and reward some of the bright stars of the game and we look forward to seeing what the future holds for these outstanding footballers.”
For more information log on to www.eirgrid.ie or visit follow EirGrid on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram using #EirGridGAA.
EirGrid 20 U20
Conor Flaherty (Galway)
Darragh Canavan (Tyrone)
Jack Glynn (Galway)
Cormac Munroe (Tyrone)
Lee Gannon (Dublin)
Sean O’Brien (Kerry)
Dan McCarthy (Kerry)
Conor Raftery (Galway)
Paul Kelly (Galway)
Aaron Doherty (Donegal)
Matthew Tierney (Galway)
Tommo Culhane (Galway)
Mark Lavin (Dublin)
Lorcan O’Dell (Dublin)
Ciaran Archer (Dublin)
Ethan Jordan (Tyrone)
Tiernan Quinn (Tyrone)
Ronan Coffey (Laois)
Ruairi Ó Beaglaoich (Kerry)
Blake Murphy (Cork)
