Kerry's summer sensation: 'He's the biggest competitor I ever came across'

Irish Daily Mirror

5 days ago

He may have only pierced the wider public consciousness this summer, but Joe O'Connor has been hiding in plain sight.
After all, he is an All-Ireland winning captain, albeit largely as a bit-part player in 2022 as he came off the bench in four games, including in injury time in the final, but still lifted the Sam Maguire Cup with Seán O'Shea.
At that stage, David Moran, Jack Barry, Diarmuid O'Connor, Adrian Spillane and Barry Dan O'Sullivan were all ahead of him in the midfield pecking order, with O'Connor favoured more in a half-back or half-forward role.
Last year he started each of seven of Kerry's Championship games alongside his namesake Diarmuid in the middle but was replaced in all bar one of them and appeared very much the junior partner. Midfield was still identified as a problem area for Kerry and, until recent months at least, O'Connor wasn't identified as part of the solution.
But his emergence as a Kerry player of real substance has come at a time when the need could hardly have been greater. Diarmuid O'Connor has had ongoing problems with his shoulder and O'Sullivan's season was ended by a cruciate ligament rupture. Amid all of that, their much maligned midfield has emerged as a strength rather than a weakness, and much of that is down to O'Connor, with the 26-year-old a nailed-on All Star.
Former Kerry star Marc Ó Sé is on the teaching staff at Tralee CBS, where he first came across O'Connor, who comes from a rugby household.
'He was very much of a rugby background,' says Ó Sé. 'Would have focused on his physical strength, strength and conditioning, and would have worked really hard at that.
'He was in with Munster rugby growing up and then obviously changed, worked really hard with Austin Stacks then and won a county championship and I think since then there's the grá for the football.'
His brother, James, was a bright prospect in rugby before a pair of cruciate injuries effectively put paid to his ambitions. Joe was making inroads, however, winning an interprovincial title with Munster's under-18s, though Austin Stacks minor manager Wayne Quillinan was gently keeping communication lines open.
'He had not played football for a couple of years and I just made contact with Joe just to let him know, 'Listen, we'd love to have you back, but we know you have an interest in rugby',' Quillinan explains. 'So those conversations kind of continued for a while and then he came back playing.'
Quillinan's brief, as far as he was concerned, was to develop players and people that could come through and contribute to the club at adult level more than stockpiling underage honours. As it was, he managed to achieve both, but there was a moment where he realised that O'Connor was had Kerry potential.
'I remember we played Na Gaeil, their our local, local rivals, I think it was a county semi-final or something like that, and we were being beaten by five or six points and Joe was just coming back, so we hadn't started him.
'Diarmuid O'Connor was midfield for Na Gaeil and was running the show and we put Joe on at half-time and he turned the whole game around. I think we ended up winning the game by four or five points and, particularly against such a quality player like Diarmuid, you just kind of said to yourself, 'Jesus Christ, there's a lot here in this fella'.'
Within a couple of years, rugby was parked and he was playing for Kerry under-20s while he made two League appearances for the seniors of the 2021 Allianz League. That same year, with Quillinan having taken charge of the senior side by then, Stacks won the county title, which effectively granted O'Connor the senior captaincy in 2022, but injury prevented him from building up a head of steam. Kerry's Joe O'Connor celebrates at the final whistle of the quarter-final win over Armagh. (Image: Mandatory Credit ©INPHO/James Crombie)
'We won the county championship in '21, and we played the Barrs in the Munster final, and he got injured in that game. So he was out for a lot of the year in '22 when Kerry won it. So it was very hard to play catch-up there and that following September, we played championship again, and he did his cruciate, so that put him out for the whole 12 months so I think what we're seeing now is actually Joe O'Connor, the one that we knew was developing in this direction, but it's just the consistency now.'
This year's Championship opener against Cork was essentially the making of him. He scored a magnificent winning goal, firing to the roof of Micheál Aodh Martin's net in extra time, but his performance also included a point, directly assisting 1-1, winning clean possession on four kickouts, breaking four more to teammates and winning a break from another himself that set in train a move that finished with Kerry's first goal.
There were a handful of turnovers too and, of course, the hard running that is arguably the standout feature of his game.
'That's what I think just that he missed in the last two years,' says Quillinan of that Cork game. 'Obviously with the injury, he couldn't get those moments because he wasn't on the pitch. But the more moments you get like that, obviously the more confidence and belief that you're going to say to yourself, 'You know what, I belong here'. I think that's what Joe has done this year, and shown us all that it's absolutely true.'
Further man of the match awards have come in his last two games against Armagh and Tyrone.
'Technically he's become a vital cog in this Kerry team,' says Ó Sé. 'You cast your mind back to 2022 when he was only coming in as a cameo role, but you see the way he goes at the opposition now. He's been outstanding.'
And the new rules have contributed to his rise, Quillinan believes.
'Hugely so, because of the fact there's obviously so much more space and I think the big thing that Joe would have taken from rugby was actually the ability to come off the shoulder, the support play and I think that's a huge factor in transition in the game these days and that's one of his huge attributes. He's the biggest competitor I ever came across. Even when he was 16-years-old, you could see that competitive edge about him and then he developed his skills, then along the way.' Wayne Quillinan when managing Austin Stacks back in 2022. (Image: ©INPHO/Ryan Byrne)
Much of the pre-match debate has centered around the degree to which Donegal can negate David Clifford's influence, yet O'Connor is in the Footballer of the Year conversation with the Fossa great.
'If we get a big game out of Joe it'll be huge for Kerry getting over the line,' Ó Sé insists. 'I have nothing but great things to say about that man. He's a lovely man off the field, an absolute gentleman, and he's doing his stuff on the field and he's making what was a needy area for Kerry in the middle of the park seem as though it was a distant memory.'