SPORTING PASSIONS: CONOR O'SHEAtells Mark Roddenwhy he loved watching the Kerry team of the late 1970s and why that team will prove impossible to match

MY RELATIONSHIP with Kerry football obviously started with my father, Jerome, who played for the county. I was born and grew up in the 1970s, watching the Galway-Kerry-Dublin rivalry and then the great Kerry team of the mid to late '70s and the early '80s.

Even though I went to a rugby-playing school in Dublin, a lot of my sporting youth was spent every summer in Kerry following that team which, to my mind, is probably the greatest sporting team to come out of Ireland.

I just loved watching them play.

The forward line with people like John Egan, Mikey Sheehy, Eoin Liston and Pat Spillane - are you ever going to get a group of forwards quite like that again?

I love my Gaelic football and I love following Kerry. It's my other sporting passion, which is not really a massive surprise given the family I come from and the name.

Growing up watching Pat Spillane or Jack O'Shea scoring points from ridiculous angles, my first thought before I ever thought of playing rugby for Ireland was could I manage to play Gaelic football for Kerry, but I probably never would have been any good.

When you look at the likes of Colm Cooper, Kieran Donaghy, Séamus Moynihan, all the Ó'Sé's, Dara Ó'Cinnéide - there were some great footballers there in the last number of years as well.

As they say, you turn a stone over in Kerry and a footballer comes out.

In the early 1980s, Micheál Ó'Muircheartaigh used to take the Dublin-based Kerry players for sessions in UCD and I'd go out as a kid to watch. I was immersed in the GAA, going down to Kerry and listening to stories about my dad, meeting the players of his era and hearing stories about Mick O'Connell, Mick O'Dwyer and Seán Murphy.

My dad won three All-Irelands for Kerry in the '50s and he lost in a couple of finals as well. All my uncles love their sport and played at various levels, whether it be for St Mary's in Cahersiveen, South Kerry or Kerry minor.

My dad was the one who made the breakthrough in terms of playing and winning All-Irelands, but they all played.

I played Gaelic on and off, but it was always up in Dublin. My eldest brother had a trial for Dublin minors, but it clashed with playing for Terenure College in a school's cup final. I don't think my dad could ever have coped with him pulling on a Dublin jersey anyway.

The only regret following Kerry is obviously that goal by Séamus Darby in 1982 against Offaly. I was in the Canal End when that went in and it was hard to take because you thought you were never going to see their like again.

But a number of that team played on and came back. They lost to Cork the following year to a last-minute goal in the Munster final, but then did the three-in-a-row straight after that.

I'd never rate any team better than the team of the '70s, no matter how good the current team becomes. But Jack O'Connor did a great job and Pat O'Shea seems to have settled in nicely.

They're back winning and, from what all the pundits say, you would think they'll be the team to beat again this year.

When you look at people like Colm Cooper, you realise what Kerry football is all about. He's not the biggest man, but he is the most incredible footballer.

He can score goals and points and in terms of impact on games he's second to none. You'd pay money to watch people like him.

There are a few guys who would challenge to get into the team that I loved and grew up with. I'm sure Kieran Donaghy at his best, but you'd do well to move the Bomber Liston wouldn't you?

In between, there were some unbelievable players - Maurice Fitzgerald didn't win as many All-Irelands as someone of his talent in another era would have.

Given that I was playing rugby, I'd heard a lot about Mick Galwey. He had the makings of a great midfielder by all accounts and was on the panel that won an All-Ireland. But I think the engine he had when he was in his GAA prime might have been slightly different to the one he had when he was a rugby player because they're two completely different types of fitness, being a midfielder compared to being a secondrow/number eight.

But one of the great advantages that Ireland has in terms of rugby is that Irish people, because of how rounded we are at sport, are very natural footballers.

A lot of rugby players play all sports and play a lot of Gaelic when they're younger and I think the handling ability in terms of our fielding is more natural than most rugby nations.

You'd like to think it will continue because if you look at people such as Tommy Bowe, Geordan Murphy and Shane Horgan, they all have solid Gaelic backgrounds, so it really does help you.