Brian Cuthbert praised his young Cork side's never-say-die attitude after they came from nine points down to pip Galway for a place in this year's ESB All-Ireland minor football final.

"With 15 minutes to go I said to one of the selectors at that stage, 'if we can pull this out of the fire, we're going to be very lucky'. But that's the young fellas I have. They don't panic, they don't give up, they just keep plugging away," the Cork manager enthused.

"It's something I had to drill into them all year. But it's very hard to drill something into an 18-year-old, that's quite difficult to do. These lads thankfully just seem to take the information we're giving them on board.

"There are no superstars, but we have mature players who will battle until the very end. They just clawed it back. In fairness to our guys, after 12 or 13 minutes it would have been very easy to fold up the tent and say 'it's not our year, we've had a good run'.

Yesterday's victory means Cork will be represented in the both All-Ireland minor and senior finals on September 19 for the first time since 1993. On that occasion, Cuthbert was part of the Cork minor team that defeated Meath.

"Yeah, it'll be very special. There's two ways it can go. You can say it's great to have the crowd behind you or they can be a bit in awe of the occasions and it's gone past them before they really realise," he added. Tweet

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