'I found the year in general tough' - O'Connor to take time over decision on future
Losing an All-Ireland semi-final in July was human – the pain of that defeat to Armagh is part of the reason why he is hesitant about staying on – but losing his management team the following month was, well, not careless but compounding.
In mid-August, selector Mike Quirke announced his departure and Diarmuid Murphy soon followed.
With Paddy Tally agreeing to a smaller role before eventually taking over Derry, O'Connor faced a race to put a new band together in September. It required headhunting in the form of Cian O'Neill from Galway to join Aodán Mac Gearailt, James Costello and Pa McCarthy.
'I found the year in general tough because you have to remember, around this time last year, we suffered a heartbreaking defeat to Armagh in a game that we appeared to be in control of,' O'Connor recounted. 'Then I had my whole management broke up. So I had to try and put the management together while I was dealing with the personal heartbreak of losing an All-Ireland semi-final.
'That can be a tough, lonely place to be, when you're trying to do that. So right from this time last year I found the going tough and there were times when I felt like packing it up, and whatever. I'm glad I stuck with it and saw the year out because, sure, we got the reward yesterday. But it was a tough year.'
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The faith of the players convinced O'Connor to reform his backing group. 'Well, I would be conversing with some of the players and stuff and they would have said to 'hang in there'.
'It's tough going when you lose your management team, lads that you soldier with and that you trust and confide in. Then you have to try and gel with a new management team. That can be tough at times. As it turned out, the lads have been brilliant.'
O'Connor credited them for identifying Donegal's zonal approach was ripe for two-point picking. He will now face a stronger charm offensive from the players to stick around especially after signalling this was his last season at the helm.
'It isn't like I'm playing hard to get at all. I'm a long old time at this thing now, lads. I found last year particularly tough, I have to say, and I'm not sure I can put myself through that stuff again because when you reach a certain age, your priorities change a bit.
'There's a lot of other things I like doing. I like playing a bit of golf. I like spending time with my grandson, Jack, who's mad for golf as well. He'd be around the lawn below at the golf club, learning to swing it.
'I live in a nice part of the country and I enjoy being out in nature and going out at my old homestead in Dromid, stuff like that. We'll see. I'll leave it settle for a couple of weeks.
'I won't hang people out to dry or keep people hanging on. I'll have a think about it. I had only one or two hours' sleep last night, so now isn't a great time to be making a decision.'
O'Connor would be one for piseogs but he didn't buy into the idea that another All-Ireland was on the way after winning the league as the pattern followed in his four previous successes. 'Not particularly no, because particularly the way we won the league, we almost won the league by default, I would suggest.'
It didn't appear an All-Ireland was on the cards last month after a humbling day against Meath in Tullamore or at least to a number of pundits, who O'Connor hit back at following the sensational quarter-final win over Armagh.
'Ah, it wasn't about me personally. It was just that we were putting in an incredible effort, everybody but on the back of one bad day out we were being written off and disrespected.
'Sometimes you just get pissed off with that because the people who are doing the criticising are most of the time hurlers on the ditch who don't put in the same effort themselves with teams.
'I'm normally not like that. You've listened to me a long time, I normally give stock answers at these press briefings but I had reached a point where I was just up to my tonsils with it. I had a bit of a rant sure there is no harm at times to leave off a bit of steam.'
On Sunday, O'Connor was asked about Mick O'Dwyer who passed away in April – 'The rest of us are only trotting after him now'. On Monday morning, he spoke too about his former selector and Kerry great Johnny Culloty, who died in February of this year.
'Johnny was a great friend of mine. He got a few calls during the match yesterday, and before the match. I remember his son saying to me at his funeral that Johnny would help us to win the All-Ireland. So fair play to Donal, he predicted that.'
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