02-05-2025
O'Connor urges Kerry to 'get tuned in, get back to basics, put in a good shift' against Banner
Jack O'Connor, a keen student of the Irish language will know the meaning of the phrase 'An rud is annamh is iontach'. What's seldom is wonderful.
This idiom springs to mind on the rare occasion when the last manager of a team comes face to face with the current coach.
Now in charge of the Banner, Peter Keane was over Kerry when they last played Clare in Killarney, while Jack O'Connor is in the Kingdom hot-seat once more.
It's safe to say the pair will not break bread at a lunch date over the next while. When interviewing both men, one in Muckross at the championship launch and the other this week in Tralee, neither man mentioned the other by name. For two South Kerry natives, born within 10 miles of each other, that is a tad strange.
But neither man will be on the field on Sunday and it's the players from the Kingdom and the Banner who will decide who wins the Munster SFC final, while supporters will bask in May sunshine at Fitzgerald Stadium consuming ice creams cones and lapping up the rivalry.
For years the provincial championships, particularly Munster and Leinster, were considered little more than dead ducks. Interesting is just about the last word you could apply to them.
In the space of a fortnight, though, that's all changed radically. Cork pushed the Kingdom so hard in the Munster semi-final that they probably should have seen it out in the end.
'I felt myself that if we didn't have the sending off, we probably would have won the game in normal time," O'Connor says ahead of this weekend's showpiece. "The sending off (of Paudie Clifford) seemed to lift the Cork crowd and the Cork players. They just got a sniff of it and they came from seven down to equalise in three or four minutes. So that was a big blow for our fellas, for us to get out of that situation then and take it to extra time and hold on while we were still a man down is good going. So that is the positive part of the Cork win.
"Obviously we would not be happy on how we allowed Cork to pull back seven points in three or four minutes. It was a great game to win in the end but it would have been a terrible one to lose from the position of where we were, being seven up at two different stages in the game.'
Asked if he and Kerry's midfield can learn from the Páirc Ui Chaoimh epic he adds: 'Cork are very physical around that area and they were replacing big men with more big men.
"So they just had a size advantage in that particular area and it was a night where there was a lot of attrition under the kick-out and conditions had a part to play too. So I thought their superior size told against us at times so that is all I would say about that.'
In the absence of Diarmuid O'Connor, Kerry's midfield is made up of Joe O'Connor, who got man of the match against Cork, and Barry Dan O'Sullivan.
'Barry Dan is having a good season for us," O'Connor says. "He has been a bit unlucky because he has picked up a few knocks here and there. But he is putting a great shift for us and obviously we are hoping to get Diarmuid back sooner rather than later. But the other boys are knocking around the place as well who are doing well.
"Sean O'Brien and Mark O'Shea are in there and Cathal Ó Beaglaoich so there is good competition for that particular area. But the last night I just thought that Cork had fierce athleticism and size in that particular area and probably shaded it over us on the night. Barry Dan is robust and physical and that is no harm I suppose with the amount of attrition that is under the kick-outs nowadays' O'Connor concluded."
After Clifford's suspension was upheld by the GAA's Central Hearings Committee last Thursday, did the player consider taking it the next step to the Central Appeals Committee?
'No, we just said we'd explore it, that's all,' O'Connor said. 'We got a fair hearing and it's well run. The CCC is a well-run set-up I have to say and very professionally dealt with, but we wouldn't be going any further with it.'
When Jack was asked on his thoughts on Clare now managed by a fellow Kerry man in Peter Keane, he praised their league form: 'You would have to say that they had an impressive league because they beat the two teams that got promoted, Kildare and Offaly.
"We were not overly happy with our display against them last year. I remember coming out of Ennis feeling a bit underwhelmed to be honest with you. I thought it was a bit of an anti-climax from a Kerry point of view. We did not play particularly well on the day.
"We just have to keep our eye on the ball here and ensure that the players are tuned in. We can't think that just because the better of Cork that we are home and hosed. So that is what we will be looking for, we will be concentrating on our own performance as much as we can and hoping that the players get tuned in and get back to basics, put in a good shift and that is it.'
