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Irish Times
3 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Times
Kerry were on a tried and tested path to Sam Maguire that escaped the attention of everyone
Everything becomes clearer in retrospect. Potential influences, which were dismissed before the match is played, become obvious factors in the outcome. They might even have been identified but simply not accorded the appropriate weight when calculating the balance of possibilities. Sunday was considered in advance as likely to be a tight contest, very hard to call. As the final turned out, it shouldn't have been. What got overlooked or overestimated? Jack O'Connor was managing Kerry for the eighth time in an All-Ireland final . That's a lot of experience of both the highs and lows of the occasion, although his style is not to go overboard in either direction. A year ago, after losing the All-Ireland semi-final to Armagh , O'Connor sounded a bit tired by it all if kind of dismissive of the suggestion that he might call it a day. 'Are you trying to retire me? Ah sure we don't know. This management has another year in its contract or whatever so we'll hopefully see that out.' READ MORE His final year didn't get off to a promising start, as he struggled to engage people with the concept of refreshing his backroom team after the departure of a few of his selectors. It was probably seen as a short-term arrangement in a manager's final year. On Sunday, he appeared to be signalling that he was finished now that the term of his appointment is over, but the closed door didn't entirely click shut. Maybe the management team convened for this year can be persuaded to take things on a little longer. Of O'Connor's previous four All-Ireland wins, two came through the old qualifier system, which meant that defeat had to be processed along the way. It's a challenging task and in his memoir, Keys to the Kingdom, he wrote vividly about the dynamic of taking a team bruised by losing and restoring it with all the strained interpersonal relationships that entailed. That year, 2006, was about restoration and reinvention. Kieran Donaghy was deployed as a full forward. The signature win came against Armagh in the quarter-final, a comprehensive reassertion of Kerry after the All-Ireland defeat by the same opponents four years previously. Kerry's Diarmuid O'Connor, Paul Murphy, Killian Spillane, Gavin White and Tadhg Morley with Chloe Jarrell during the newly-crowned All-Ireland champions visit to Temple Street Children's Hospital, Dublin. Photograph: Dan Clohessy/Inpho The same happened in 2009 after another defeat by Cork in Munster and an alarmingly high-wire progress through the qualifiers during which retired All Star corner back Michael McCarthy was brought back as a centre back. That year's reset also came in the quarter-final, against Dublin, a realignment that took all of the few seconds required for Colm Cooper to score a goal. [ The great David Clifford delivers his most complete performance when it matters most Opens in new window ] Fast forward to last month and Kerry, stigmatised by a nine-point beating from Meath, arrived to face All-Ireland champions Armagh. In the second half, they ran off the now famous 14-point sequence and stormed to victory. O'Connor's blast at former Kerry players-turned-pundits was an unusual departure from his generally measured approach, but presumably it had a purpose. In Sunday's aftermath he pushed back at the idea that his anger had been in any way contrived. 'There was a lot of steam coming out of my ears. It wasn't faked or it wasn't put on. 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.' That's now three of his five All-Irelands won in a campaign that featured a fairly traumatic defeat. The adversity appears to bring out the best in him. Already this year, Kerry have had to juggle injuries to important players but the reset and response have been brilliantly executed. Kerry manager Jack O'Connor during Sunday's All-Ireland SFC final victory against Donegal at Croke Park. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho Speaking to Denis Walsh on these pages only a fortnight ago , in advance of the semi-final against Tyrone, former county captain Dara Ó Cinnéide summarised O'Connor's strengths in these circumstances. 'Jack is exceptionally good in these situations with his back to the well,' said Ó Cinnéide. 'He doesn't get to use that chip often. Kerry are always favourites and usually come out with a good result. But he's really, really good with his back to the wall. 'His instincts are really strong. You know, 'Who'll do well for me this week? Who'll do right for me here?'. He'd have watched training the following week and he'd almost have known by a fella's body language who's genuinely up for it. He has great sensibilities around people like that.' Sunday's All-Ireland triumph was a particularly memorable achievement because of how well Kerry played, regardless of Donegal's tactical missteps which made it easier. The trinity of forwards, the Clifford brothers and Seán O'Shea, were exceptional but there were performances everywhere: Shane Ryan in goal, Jason Foley plugging away on Michael Murphy, RTÉ man-of-the-match Gavin White tearing up and down the field, Mike Breen's presence and presence of mind, Joe O'Connor maintaining his push for the Footballer of the Year shortlist – all combining for a form-driven blitz of attacking execution. Kerry's David Clifford delivered another big performance in the All-Ireland final. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho Another aspect of his successful years is the now-maintained track record of winning both league and championship in the same season. Should the consistency of that double achievement have made the All-Ireland final outcome more predictable? As can be seen from the precedent, those league wins in April or, latterly, March didn't always trigger a clean sweep through the summer. If a spring title is so important, why have there been down years when his teams don't appear to be chasing the league? The answer is that, for the most part, Kerry do turn up for the league. Eleven years ago, during one of his hiatus periods – O'Connor was managing the minors rather than the seniors – he spoke to The Irish Times about the importance of going as far as possible in the league. 'I think it is critical. The bottom line, even as late as 2012 when we were beaten by Mayo in the semi-finals, I really felt we could have done with another match. 'Andy Moran was saying it after the weekend – how big it was to play Dublin in Croke Park and to experience the pitch and the atmosphere. It plays different to any other pitch in the country because of its size and fast surface.' That desire to familiarise with the stadium also ties in with the belief that their natural game, now enhanced by the Football Review Committee's new rules, is especially well suited to Croke Park. After rearing up on Dublin in the 2009 quarter-final, O'Connor explained the turnaround. 'We felt we had worked very, very hard in the last five or six weeks since the Cork game and somewhere along the line we would click,' he said. 'No better place than here, where we have the space to play our natural game.' You'd sometimes wonder how does anyone beat them there.
Irish Times
6 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Times
True north: Kerry and Jack O'Connor's clashes with Ulster sides are acid tests
Heading into his eighth All-Ireland final but just his second against an Ulster team, Jack O'Connor was content to firmly push aside the notion that facing northern teams made any difference to him. 'It doesn't matter who you beat in an All-Ireland final,' he said to Newstalk. 'It's the same value. There's no asterisk after your name any year you win it. It's something the media latch on to more than management or players.' In this, he is consistent. Twenty years ago, asked about how special it would be to beat Tyrone in the 2005 final, he dismissed the notion. 'It's not like they're giving two All-Irelands for this final.' It's the admirable transactional attitude of Kerry . No matter, as long as the titles are racked up by the end of the year. There is, however, a slight peevishness about what are considered the insufferable conceits and pretensions of northerners, and ironically, one of the most vivid articulations of this was in O'Connor's memoir, Keys to the Kingdom. 'They talk about how they did it, they go on and on about this theory and that practice as if they'd just split the atom. They build up a mythology about themselves. That doesn't sit well in Kerry, where a man with four All-Ireland medals would quietly defer to another man who has five.' For something he discounted as a media construct, it seemed to sting O'Connor at the time into the ultimate and generally unspoken Kerry put-down: show us your medals. Not that he has been shy about borrowing, from acknowledging that he adopted tackle drills from the Ulster Council website to unabashedly recruiting Tyrone coach Paddy Tally for his third coming. The northern problem isn't exclusively Jack O'Connor's. Despite losing just once in a championship to northern counties in the first 49 years of the GAA's existence – an All-Ireland semi-final to Antrim, loftily dismissed as being because Kerry players were hungover – the matches between the county and Ulster opponents developed a different dynamic. Whereas Kerry have a healthy All-Ireland final trading balance with the representatives of the other two provinces, they are running at just 45 per cent against Ulster teams. Some of the other meetings have also been consequential. In 1933, Kerry's first attempt at five-in-a-row was stopped in the semi-finals by a Cavan team on the way to winning Ulster's first All-Ireland. Since then, there have been the breakthrough wins of Down, Armagh, Tyrone and Donegal have included Kerry scalps along the way. This was well summarised by Maurice Hayes, the influential Down administrator and later member of the Seanad, talking about how his county had targeted the Kerry orthodoxies of catch-and-kick and fixed position play. Ulster innovation has played a big role in O'Connor's managerial career. Each of the three times he was appointed, Tyrone were All-Ireland champions and although on his most recent accession he appeared only dimly aware of the coincidence, the events were demonstrably connected. All three of those Tyrone triumphs included defeating Kerry, once in a final and twice in semi-finals, including the famous 2003 match with its images of swarm tackling and harassed players in green and gold. August 2003 in the All-Ireland semi-final when Tyrone played Kerry and demonstrated the art of blanket defending. Photograph: Inpho O'Connor was coming in to restore order, which he invariably did. After the 2004 win, then county chair Seán Walsh didn't mince his words. 'We are delighted that it took a Kerry team to restore the pride in Gaelic football.' The following year, O'Connor had no better luck than his predecessor Páidí Ó Sé in dealing with Tyrone in the All-Ireland final but overall, his record against northern teams is good. Sunday will his 16th championship match against an Ulster county and the balance is 11-4 – but the issue is the weight attached to those four defeats. They came in the 2005 All-Ireland final (Tyrone), a quarter-final when champions in 2010 against Down (of all counties!), another quarter-final two years later against Sunday's opponents, Donegal, who were on the way to the title and last year's semi-final against Armagh. Kieran McGeeney's team were also bound for All-Ireland success, but for the first time this year O'Connor was able to inflict revenge on a team that had eliminated his in the previous championship. Often Kerry would go looking the next season but there was nobody there. It was Eamonn Fitzmaurice, a former lieutenant of O'Connor on and off the field, who accomplished a rare feat: a Kerry team upstaging Ulster opposition tactically when he sent out the team that defeated Donegal in 2014 by facing down Jim McGuinness's side by mimicking their own strategy. Armagh All-Ireland winner Steven McDonnell tweeted in the aftermath: 'Congrats to Eamonn Fitzmaurice. He adapted a plan to beat an incredible system and came out on top. Well done Kerry & hard luck to Donegal.' That same day O'Connor was in charge of the county minors, who were doubling up against Donegal and winning a first All-Ireland in 20 years. Emulating that this weekend would be a perfect way to wrap up a fifth title and, potentially, a significant career.
Irish Times
24-07-2025
- Sport
- Irish Times
Jack O'Connor: ‘Being involved in it so long now, I go off my instinct to know what is appropriate and what isn't'
Despite his now three comings as Kerry football manager, Jack O'Connor has never been one for looking back. Instinct is what guides him, some natural recall, too. But if he banked on what worked before always working again, he'd never have lasted this long. Sunday's showdown against Donegal will be his eighth All-Ireland final as Kerry manager. His first was 21 years ago. He could tell you Kerry beat Cork that year, and beyond that, every final is different, an entirely new script which can only be written on the day itself. 'I wouldn't be a diary man, no,' O'Connor says. 'I go off memory and instinct. And being involved in it so long now, I go off my instinct to know what is appropriate and what isn't. [ Darragh Ó Sé: The margins are tight but Kerry have one thing that Donegal don't Opens in new window ] 'Particularly nowadays with social media. You can spend a whole day looking at it if you want, and I think it's very important for players when they get away from training that they get a bit of a break mentally from it. You can't be tuned in for every waking hour of the day. READ MORE 'A lot of it now is mental. Because the way the season is, it's very hard to get the physical training spot on. You don't have a lot of time to train in between matches. We played eight games in nine weeks in the league, and there wasn't a lot of time for training there. We got some bit done the three weeks we had between the league and championship and then we had three weekends in-a-row of matches, when we didn't top our group. 'You're basically just tipping away and relying on the matches themselves to keep you right. The mental side is very important in keeping players fresh because you don't want what they are calling cognitive overload. You just can't throw too much at players.' O'Connor's seven previous finals are spread throughout his now three comings as Kerry manager: winning in 2004 (against Cork); in 2006 (against Mayo); in 2009 (against Cork); and in 2022 (against Galway). His three defeats came in 2005 (against Tyrone) and in 2011 and 2023 (both against Dublin). Kerry manager Jack O'Connor after the final whistle in the All-Ireland quarter-final against Armagh. Photograph: James Lawlor/Inpho Donegal on Sunday will be Kerry's fourth successive Ulster opponents this season (after Cavan, Armagh and Tyrone), and Jim McGuinness, in his second coming as Donegal manager, also knows all about winning and losing All-Ireland finals. 'He [McGuiness] is having as big an effect on them this time,' says O'Connor. 'Like he did the first time. He's a revered figure in the county, who is able to unify them, and there has been no such thing as players opting out like in previous years. He's a formidable coach and has improved Donegal no end. 'We just see the next opposition as a challenge, the next day we go out regardless of where they are from. We don't see it [the Ulster factor] as a big deal. All I know is that there are a lot of good teams up in Ulster, it's a strong province, so there is always tough opposition up there.' The new playing rules have also presented O'Connor with a different challenge this year. And while he describes the game now as 'more enjoyable to watch, play, and to manage and coach', there may well be something of a clash of styles on Sunday. 'I don't think there will be too much change in approach from both teams. Yes, we like to kick the ball, but the opposition don't always allow you to do that. You can only play a match that you see in front of you. It depends what the opposition do to your kicking lanes, and Donegal have a powerful running game, which is natural to them because club football seems to be played like that up there. Kerry's David Clifford kicks a point during the 2023 All-Ireland final against Dublin. Photograph: Evan Treacy/Inpho 'Ultimately, it comes down to good decision making and players that are comfortable on the ball. There are a lot of ways to skin a cat. And while we will be trying to move the ball as fast as possible, it's not something that is always possible.' What is certain is that O'Connor's current role is unrecognisable compared to when he first took over Kerry in 2004, his involvement in coaching in the county now stretching back 33 years to when he was a selector with the Kerry under-21s. 'It was a bit simpler when I got involved first. I was doing nearly all the coaching myself, with some bits and pieces of input from the selectors. I was stuck inside in the middle of the training games and coaching the drills. In some ways that was more enjoyable. 'Nowadays, I'm managing a back-room team who manage the players. I'm not saying I don't have input here and there, but I'm not as hands-on as I used to be. It's maybe better, because with back-room teams the size they are, you have to change. You can't do it the same way you did it the first time.' Still, he's picked up plenty of lessons along the way: 'Mainly in terms of what you need to avoid, and being economical with your energy. There is no point in being all wired to the moon, having all your energy spent by the weekend of the game. 'I've made plenty of mistakes myself. I remember one of my early years, I reckon I had the match played in my head a 1,000 times beforehand, but when you come to the day itself, you're spent. One of the most important things on All-Ireland final day is the ability to be able to think on your feet. And that's important for the coaching staff as well as the players.'
Irish Times
22-07-2025
- Sport
- Irish Times
‘You don't get asked too often': James Costello jumped at chance to join Jack O'Connor's Kerry backroom
When Jack O'Connor made the decision to shake-up his backroom team after last year's All-Ireland semi-final loss to Armagh , he ran through his contacts and picked out James Costello. Costello's name didn't ring many bells outside of Kerry football circles, but O'Connor knew what he was looking for. If Kerry needed to inject some freshness going into the 2025 season, Costello would know exactly where to start. 'It was just like that, I just got a phone call from Jack and [he] asked me to be involved,' Costello recalls. 'You don't get asked too often so you take it when it comes.' From the St Pat's Blennerville club just outside Tralee, Costello was the Kerry minor football manager for four seasons, from 2019 to 2022, succeeding Peter Keane. Kerry lost the Covid-delayed All-Ireland final against Derry in 2020 by a point. He also spent last season as a Clare football selector and has been involved with various Kerry underage teams over the years. READ MORE On Sunday, he will be an important member of O'Connor's backroom team as Kerry go in search of a 39th All-Ireland Senior Football Championship. Donegal stand in their way. 'I suppose it's like any field, you want to progress as far as you can,' says Costello of coming on board. 'You want to see where you can get to with the thing, where the ceiling is of it. I was very lucky to get involved with Clare. I thought that was a great grounding. I really enjoyed it and it was a very good stepping stone.' For O'Connor, Costello's knowledge of underage football in Kerry neatly supplements the other new additions to his backroom team – former Kildare manager Cian O'Neill and former Kerry senior footballer Aodán Mac Gearailt. O'Neill is no stranger to Kerry football. He previously worked alongside former manager Éamonn Fitzmaurice in a coaching capacity for three years, which included their 2014 All-Ireland final win over Donegal. Last year, O'Neill was with the Galway footballers and his experience also extends to the All-Ireland winning Tipperary hurlers in 2010, plus stints with the Limerick, Mayo and Cork footballers. Once Costello started his new position, he quickly realised O'Connor's modus operandi. The job of the intercounty manager is unrecognisable now compared to when O'Connor took the Kerry job in 2003 for the first of three stints. Delegating different responsibilities to the right people is now critical. James Costello guided the Kerry minor footballers to the 2020 All-Ireland final, which took place in 2021 because of Covid. Photograph: Bryan Keane/Inpho 'Jack is very inclusive, he's very good like that,' says Costello. 'He likes to let people add their tuppence worth in and we have good debates and good ideas. 'Jack says himself, he's a lot more hands-off than he was in the early days. We were learning as the rules were coming in and putting our heads together. So we spent a lot of time together, like most management teams did, but it was a big help in terms of gelling the management team, I felt. 'You get in and you do your bit. Players just want to learn, want to get better. We were lucky, I suppose, everyone was thrown in at the deep end with the new rules.' [ There will always be incidents of outrageous wrongdoing when it comes to All-Ireland tickets Opens in new window ] [ Donegal v Kerry: Throw-in time, TV details and team news about All-Ireland football final Opens in new window ] Impressive midfielder Joe O'Connor is one of the Kerry players Costello was familiar with from his underage coaching. O'Connor was also a standout rugby player at underage level and was part of a successful Munster Under-18s team back in 2016. He endured a setback in 2022, tearing his cruciate weeks after Kerry's All-Ireland SFC final victory against Galway. 'I thought he had the potential to be the best midfielder in the country,' says Costello. 'But the big thing with Joe is just his dedication to work. He works really, really hard at the game and I think he's found a way or a flow of playing this new game that's working very well for him. 'He's found a way of playing within the game – opportunities to tackle, opportunities to work and opportunities to attack. I'm sure he's looking forward to the next day [against Donegal], but he has a big test ahead of him.' Costello doesn't need to think too hard about where the All-Ireland final is likely to be won and lost on Sunday. 'Your ability to milk your momentum, get your hands on ball and break the other team's momentum is absolutely crucial. 'We're probably the biggest exponents of it in both sides, really. If you can get a run on a team and get three or four kick-outs in a row and do real damage, it has a big bearing in the game. Because when the tide starts turning against you, it's a lot more difficult now to turn it around than it used to be.'
Irish Times
27-06-2025
- Sport
- Irish Times
Dean Rock: Kerry's problem is the calibre of player in the squad. Everything hinges on David Clifford
It is remembered as the day of Dublin's startled earwigs but Kerry caught all of the remaining contenders by surprise with their performance in the 2009 All-Ireland quarter-final. Kerry arrived to the last eight of the competition that August with more questions hanging over them than you'd expect to find on a TV quizshow. They had stumbled to the quarter-finals after narrow, uninspiring, wins over Longford , Sligo and Antrim . I had been called up to the Dublin squad a few weeks earlier and though I didn't get any game time during that championship, I was on the bench for that quarter-final against Kerry. We entered the game as favourites, but Kerry had other ideas. They arrived to Croke Park like a team possessed and they humiliated us. At the final whistle we were left to pick through the wreckage of a 1-24 to 1-7 defeat. Kerry went on to win the All-Ireland. READ MORE I was reminded of that game again during the week when considering Sunday's quarter-final between Kerry and Armagh , because once again there are doubts hanging over the Kingdom's footballers at this stage of the All-Ireland senior football championship. There is of course a possibility Kerry will arrive to Croke Park this weekend and take their frustration out on Armagh just as they did on us 16 years ago. However, the big difference between then and now is the calibre of players n the Kerry squad. This current group is being judged against Kerry teams of old. There is a belief in Kerry that they should be challenging for All-Irelands every year and because of that the players are rated by tradition more than quality. The core problem for Kerry is that they don't have enough players operating at the very highest level. Kerry's Colm Cooper scores the first goal of the game against Dublin in the 2009 quarter-final. Photograph: Donall Farmer/Inpho In David Clifford they boast one of the greatest players to ever grace the game but the reality is that since 2015 Kerry have won just a single All-Ireland senior title. That's one Sam Maguire triumph going on 11 years now. Given the wave of underage success between 2014-2018 when the county won five consecutive All-Ireland minor titles, it has clearly been a barren decade at senior level. The return from that golden generation of minors has been hugely disappointing. Kerry fans would have hoped that underage success was going to be the platform for a period of dominance at senior level. But it hasn't played out that way. How many of the current Kerry players would get on the great Kerry teams of the recent past – those sides with Paul Galvin, Colm Cooper, Declan O'Sullivan, Kieran Donaghy? To be honest, I don't know if many would. So, the quality of players at their disposal is a real issue. But all is not lost. The intriguing thing about this year's All-Ireland championship is that there is no outstanding team. It's very much a level playing field, every outfit has problems. It's funny how quickly perspectives can change. Just 12 months ago Kerry entered the All-Ireland semi-final against Armagh as favourites but it would almost be seen as something of a surprise this weekend if the Munster champions pulled off a victory and dumped Armagh out of the championship. But Kerry's destiny is still in their own hands. And Clifford, of course, is their hope-maker. He's always hungry to score and he has that killer edge in terms of going for goal, which is invaluable. Most forwards will look to take points but for the likes of Clifford and Con O'Callaghan , their instinct is to go direct towards goal. You can be sure Armagh will come armed with a plan to try curtail him – but planning for Clifford and executing that plan are two very different challenges. When everybody is fit Kerry do still have attacking options to support him in the likes of Seán O'Shea, Paudie Clifford and Paul Geaney. But Geaney is 34 and you would have thought there must be some up-and-coming Kerry forward ready to grab a jersey. Matthew Thompson has brought fresh energy to Galway. Photograph: James Lawlor/Inpho Galway have brought through Matthew Thompson this season but Kerry haven't introduced similar fresh energy. Still, Armagh must be careful not to concede frees within O'Shea's considerable range because he is a very dependable weapon for Kerry. Crucially, he has always tended to kick well in Croke Park and after what has been an injury-troubled season O'Shea will be hoping to use this quarter-final as a springboard to finish the campaign on a high. Paudie Clifford's fitness will also be important because he is a very intelligent player, almost in the mould of Declan O'Sullivan. He's also very good at linking the play and creating chances for his team-mates – and you can see David loves playing alongside his brother because it's all so instinctive. The contribution of both goalkeepers will also be a key factor in the outcome. The kick-out stats have changed dramatically with the new rules because teams are now looking to get 50 per cent of the opposition's restarts. Nobody would even have dared suggest such a return last year, never mind actually succeed in doing it. Shane Ryan's long kickouts probably hang in the air a little bit, which would suit Armagh's big men around the middle, so Kerry must be a little bit more imaginative in terms of trying to win primary possession. They will need players to present themselves as options for shorter kickouts. GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship Round 2, Croke Park, Dublin 1/6/2025 Dublin vs Armagh Dublin's Paddy Small and Ethan Rafferty of Armagh Mandatory Credit ©INPHO/James Crombie Ethan Rafferty has been incredible this season, not only have his kickouts been on the money, but when he ventures forward the Armagh goalkeeper does so with real purpose and intent. He could cause Kerry real problems on Sunday. Like so many games over what promises to be a brilliant weekend, this quarter-final is incredibly difficult to call. If Armagh give up as many scoring chances to Kerry as they did to Dublin, Kieran McGeeney's side will be punished more severely by a team fighting for their lives than they were by an out of sorts Dublin. There are several factors going in Armagh's favour though – midfield superiority, greater mobility and there is also a general feel-good aura around them right now, which is in stark contrast to the cloud of doubt hanging over Kerry. For Kerry to win everything hinges on David Clifford performing. But there are also a lot of players in that Kerry dressingroom, fellahs who won an All-Ireland back in 2022, who will be somewhat disappointed by how their careers have turned out to date. For those reasons I expect Kerry to deliver a performance and make a stand against Armagh. But unlike 2009 I'm not convinced it will be enough.
