The thoughts of Covid-19 working its way into the Roscommon under-20 panel are “frightening” for manager Liam Tully ahead of Sunday’s EirGrid All-Ireland final.
Tully says that the “majority” of his players are fully vaccinated but as one of the last age cohorts to get jabbed, those in the 18-20 age bracket are now among the most vulnerable to catching the virus.
“They’re a great group of lads for minding themselves,” said Tully. “We did have a number of problems and that’s normal and honesty, for me, was key to this.
“We spoke to them on many occasions in relation to it that if they hear of anybody that may have been a close contact and just put themselves in caution, talk to us and we’ll work with them and that was key.
“We were lucky on a few occasions, like everyone, to come out the right side of it so far, and it is frightening. It absolutely is frightening.
“We all think, ‘Sure we’re not going to get it’ but so far we have been lucky and they have been really good. They have been really, really good.”
His Offaly counterpart Declan Kelly took no chances after their semi-final win over Cork, immediately whisking his players off the pitch following the final whistle as well-wishers descended on the field.
Kelly said: “You can obviously see that the numbers are getting quite high with the Covid and things at the moment. It's tricky out there, it's tricky, you're just trying to I suppose protect lads as best you can.
“You can do everything right but unfortunately with Covid you can still get caught on it, close contacts and everything that goes with it.
“We just decided that we'd get them off as quick as we could and just get them into that area again and hopefully that there wouldn't be any cases out of it.
“Now touch wood, we've been lucky so far on that front.”
