Jack O'Connor roars back from Meath meltdown to guide Kerry to Sam as doubters eat their words
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Kerry manager Jack O'Connor, and his backroom staff, celebrate after the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship final win over Donegal
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Kerry bagged their 39th Sam Maguire cup with Sunday's win at GAA HQ
The Royals stunned
O'Connor was furious with
He said: 'They're all hard-earned, but this one, I suppose, in particular, was hard-earned because we had a world of setbacks all the year, starting with the league.
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'An awful lot of injuries, lost a lot of good men.
"There's some credit due to our medical team that got bodies patched up and back on the field. For Diarmuid O'Connor to play out there was a minor miracle. So, huge credit to everybody.
'It's a massive panel effort and a backroom team effort. Delighted for the people that were with me as much as myself.
"Obviously, delighted for myself because it was a tough old year. I found this a tough year.
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'I was inside here a month ago (against Armagh) and there was a lot of steam coming out of my ears. It wasn't faked or it wasn't put on.
'There was a lot of fall-out from the Meath game and life wasn't pleasant for me for a couple of weeks there. And maybe that was behind the bit of steam I left off here a month ago.
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'It was authentic because I felt that we were getting a lot of unfair stick and we were trying our butts off and have been from the start of the year. So, for us to finally get the reward is great.'
Kerry delivered a phenomenal performance to blow Donegal away. The two-point kings reined supreme again at Croke Park as they fired four in the first half to take control of the game straight away.
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Donegal clinged for life when Kerry raced 0-13 to 0-4 in front, as David Clifford's third orange flag of the game made it 0-17 to 0-10 at the break.
But Paudie Clifford, David Clifford and the excellent Joe O'Connor - who the hit late on - steered them home.
And boss
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He said: 'Yeah, we were very determined leaving the hotel this morning.I had a few words with them just before we got on the bus that we were going to take the game to Donegal.
'We weren't going to sit back and just see what they had to offer. We were really going after them. We were going after Shaun Patton's kickouts, we were going to drive on.
'I thought Gavin White was sensational in the first quarter. A real captain's example. There were a few pivotal moments. I thought David's two pointer on the stroke of halftime was a big, big score.
'Just gave us a cushion going in at halftime and just gave the lads a lot of belief. Paudie's just coming back to himself after a long injury and we felt that he was coming good.
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'He handled some amount of ball out there and he just calmed things down and a big part of playing Donegal is getting value out of your attacks and don't turn it over.'
RUTHLESS KINGDOM
And O'Connor knew Kerry could not sit on their seven-point cushion at the break - especially when he saw what happened to the Cork hurlers a week beforehand.
The
But Kerry refused to let that happen as they kept Donegal at arms' length and made hay on breaking ball and turnovers.
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He said: 'Our mantra at halftime was we weren't going to collapse like you saw probably with the Cork hurlers maybe last week. We were going to go out and try and win the second half.
'There were times, I mean, Donegal didn't wave any white flags out there. They brought that back from, I'd say, nine points back to four points and they were still highly dangerous.
'Massive effort. Massive effort. Big contribution from an awful lot of players.
'Just thrilled for them because, as I said, we had a rough all year and it's nice to see it coming together in the end.'
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CLIFF HANGER
And Jack saved the last word for hero David Clifford - who played with the world at hos feet once more to bag his second Sam Maguire.
He said: 'David has a unique temperament, you know. He just takes it on the stride. Of course he must have felt pressure and he knew he was going to get a lot of heat.
'But you know, when we spoke about it during the week and he said, look, if I'm double marked and triple marked, he said, I just, I'll just win it and slip it.
'And he's humble enough to create scores for other people and he was a massive part of all we done there, because he kicked three two-pointers and particularly the one on the stroke of halftime was just inspirational for us going in, just get an extra zip ourselves.
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' It's his unique temperament. But yeah, how he deals with the weight of expectation, I have no idea.'
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