Jack O’Connor: ‘I am 30 years at it and I have never known anything else’

The line from A to B has rarely appeared so simply drawn. Jack O’Connor is appointed Kerry manager and in the first year of his tenure, the All-Ireland is won. Last Sunday, it happened for the third time.

On Monday morning he was out for a walk along the seafront by Dublin’s Gibson Hotel, where Kerry based themselves for the weekend. Early activity for late celebrations?

“I don’t sleep the night of matches. I sleep alright the night before matches but the night of a match you are wired up. That’s the way it is. We’ll hit the wall sometime this evening or tonight but the old adrenaline will keep you going.”

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The day after winning All-Irelands is a time for letting it all sink in, knowing that the achievement is inked into the record books and that 2022 will forever be your year.

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All the post facto satisfaction and serenity is one thing but, during the first half, Kerry were conspicuously off the pace, finding it difficult to penetrate Galway’s well-set defence and when chances arose, the shooting was off beam.

That must have been challenging at half-time?

“No, I felt that we were just lacking composure. We were creating the chances. We kicked seven wides before Galway kicked a wide. Sure, I mean we were doing well on the Galway kick-out. We were turning them over at the other end; we just weren’t nailing anything up front.

“And even after we got turnovers, we counter-attacked Galway [but] we weren’t finishing them off down at the other end. That was blow after blow and it was draining a bit of confidence. It looked like the harder fellas tried the worse it got and then Galway were nailing everything down into Hill 16.

“Look, it was just a matter of getting them into the dressing room, settling fellas down and saying, ‘Look, this is an even enough game, we are doing well in general play, we just need to settle down, get it to the shooters and get it in better positions’.

“I just thought that we just needed to calm down, not be as anxious and play our passes through the lines and get into better shooting positions, as simple as that.”

There are a few recurrent features of O’Connor’s successes. He always wins the league in the same year as the championship. That means he has guided Kerry to four doubles, in 2004, ‘06, ‘09 and this year – consistent achievement from eight seasons in charge, spread over 18 years.

It so happens that he has also won the All-Ireland the year following every one of Tyrone’s Sam Maguire wins – an occurrence he, not unreasonably, dismisses as ‘coincidence’. Sometimes though it meant more than on other occasions.

In 2004, at Kerry annual convention then county chair Sean Walsh hailed the county’s win, Jack O’Connor’s first, as having restored football, the year after Tyrone had traumatised them with their fluid positional play and swarm tackling.

“The return to a free-flowing game from the packed defence type game is welcomed by the thousands of supporters that travel to our games,” said Walsh.

Tyrone manager Mickey Harte’s coach back then was Paddy Tally, who became equally associated with that defensive template. It was therefore an irony when Tally was announced as O’Connor’s coach last October, together with selectors Mike Quirke and Diarmuid Murphy, as the new manager moved to strengthen the team’s defence.

That this attracted relatively little resistance in the county was testament to how important an All-Ireland win had become. The review of security was an evident success, as Kerry conceded just one goal in this year’s championship as opposed to seven last year.

“Outside of the systematic improvement which is there for all to see,” he says, “I think there has been really good individual improvement in players. I mean, a player like Graham O’Sullivan, who was a bit part player the last few years – this is his fourth year in the Kerry panel. He wasn’t a starter.”

O’Sullivan was one of Kerry’s best players on Sunday and – according to his manager – all season. Against Galway he curbed Rob Finnerty, one of their well-regarded full forwards, and also kicked a point in the second half and provided four assists for further scores.

“He wasn’t getting much game time. He is a transformed man. He has been one of our stand-out players all year. There’s great satisfaction in seeing individual players improve.

“Jason Foley has really come on as a full back this year. There were doubts about him, expressed by many people even within the county. But I had Jason Foley as a minor and I rated him really, really highly. He got a bit of protection this year, particularly from Tadhg [Morley]. That helped him to express himself as the player we always thought he could be.”

As manager of the Kerry minors, O’Connor led the county to All-Irelands in 2014 and ‘15 – nine of those two teams were involved on Sunday – and on Monday he reiterated his satisfaction that those players had finally achieved success on the biggest stage.

The most prominent prodigy of the lot was David Clifford who appeared in later minor teams and whose ascent to senior status has trailed expectations and dazzling performance in about equal measure.

At the weekend he was crucial to Kerry’s victory with 0-8, including three from play and two marks. The forward mark was deliberately encouraged in his repertoire, according to his manager.

“Whatever about the rule, it worked out alright for us yesterday – that’s for sure. David won a couple of great marks and it was one of the things when I spoke to him at the start of the year. I said, `David you’re 6ft 3in, 15½ stone and it’s one of the weapons we’ll try and develop this year with you’.

“I’ve always liked that in an inside forward, to be an aerial threat, going back to Johnny Crowley in ‘04 and Donaghy in ‘06 – it is a great weapon to have because it gives great direction to your play. We had made a commitment to that, to put in a bit of early ball, and Paul Geaney is also particularly good over his head so it is a good weapon to have in the armoury.”

The future starts now for Kerry, another All-Ireland banked. O’Connor’s not sure about Tally’s availability.

“Ah we haven’t gotten around to that yet – we are still basking in this one,” he says.

And for himself?

“Sure of course there’s an obsession with it. God almighty, I don’t remember not being stuck in a team. My first involvement with Kerry I suppose goes back 30 years to ‘92 when I managed the Kerry vocational schools as they were known that time, the Kerry techs.

“So look I am 30 years at it and I have never known anything else. Sure that’s all we know down there; that’s all we are any good at! Long time all right.”