'That took its toll on a personal level' - Jack O'Connor on a whirlwind year for Kerry
Declan Bogue
IN AROUND A fortnight’s time they will park it and start gathering themselves up an All-Ireland title defence. But even now there is a glow off the Kerry football team and their leader, Jack O’Connor after their Croke Park football made them a thing of beauty this summer past.
Speaking ahead of being named the Gaelic Writers’ Association ‘Football Personality of the Year,’ proudly supported by Dalata Hotel Group, O’Connor still finds himself batting off the queries about how he was 70 minutes from finishing up entirely, to being the man who helped deliver one of Kerry’s most treasured All-Irelands and signing up for two more years.
So, why go again?
“One of the big factors was you get a burst of energy after a win that you don’t have before that,” explained the Dromid man.
“A critical factor was that as a management, we had functioned very well particularly in the second half of the year, around the quarter-final stage when we really got our act together. I felt I owed them. It wouldn’t have looked great for me to take off and leave them.
“Plus I would have spoken to a few of the players and they would have encouraged me to stick at it.”
But after 2027, that’s it. You won’t see Jack O’Connor in a Kerry tracksuit again. He’s adamant.
“I was convinced going into the All-Ireland final that was it,” he reveals.
“The fall-out from last year with the defeat from Armagh and trying to put a new management together, that took its toll on a personal level. I had discussed this with my wife Bridie, there is no way in my life I would be putting myself through that again.
“I had convinced myself going into the All-Ireland this year that this would be my last cut. I wasn’t playing games the night of the All-Ireland.”
The winter of 2024 was a harsh one for O’Connor, who turned 65 on Thursday. He watched as Mike Quirke and Diarmuid Murphy departed as coaches with one year left on his arrangement. Even then his woes weren’t over as Paddy Tally answered the call from Derry to become their latest manager.
He went hunting some names around the place and might have been surprised to get knocked back. In the end, he pulled a few rabbits from the hat in Aodán MacGearailt, James Costello and Pa McCarthy, before landing a big fish in Cian O’Neill.
“The situation where the management broke up and having to basically deal with the whole fall out of that on my own and trying to put a new management together, that was tough going. No question about it. Well documented, it hit me pretty hard,” says O’Connor.
“That was the period that I found the toughest. That period where I was trying to deal with the fall out of the defeat and all that goes with that and then trying to put a new management together.
“Plus, it wasn’t the most attractive thing in the world to go in with me because I was in the last year of my term. So whoever was coming in with me, on the face of it, was coming for a year. That was also a factor.”
The season started with the new rules and a freakish game in Derry where Paddy Tally looked to have sewn up the points before a late glut of goals nabbed a win for O’Connor on his first ever visit to Derry.
A league title followed – the game in Croke Park almost worth more to them under the new rules than the actual trophy itself – before the Munster title followed after a skirmish with Cork.
And it was drifting along just fine before a defeat to Meath in Tullamore, when the sharpening stones were called for and knives produced.
After a nine-point win over Cavan that bought their ticket to Croke Park, David Clifford and O’Connor issued their call to arms for supporters to get up the road and make some noise, rather than meekly bow out like they had against Armagh in 2024.
Many were surprised at Clifford because of his mild manners and unassuming nature. Not O’Connor.
“He was 100pc right because after the Armagh semi-final defeat in 2024, I said post match that I felt the Armagh crowd were a big factor in that game and I got criticism for it at the time but I would say it again tomorrow if I had to say it, because it was a factor,” says O’Connor.
“We were well outnumbered in Croke Park that day. David was just stating facts. The crowd, in a tight game, are a factor. To be fair to the Kerry supporters, they responded in spades.
“David has the standing in Kerry that whatever he says goes. If I had said it, they might not have responded. But when David said it, they did respond. He was playing so well this year, there were neutral supporters going to games to watch him perform. Why wouldn’t Kerry come out in big numbers?”
The new rules helped him. It was, by O’Connor’s estimation, his finest year.
“I think it was. In the last couple of years, he hasn’t got a proper break. After winning in 2022, Fossa went all the way to the All-Ireland junior final and won it. He didn’t have enough of a break. I know he was rested for a while but he still didn’t get enough of a break.
“The same was true the following year, we made up our mind that winter that he was going to get a proper break so he got the bones of four months by the time he finished his last club game to playing his first start for Kerry which was above in Pomeroy (against Tyrone), he got four months off.
“And that was the first time he had enough time to basically switch off and have enough time to do his own bit of work, to come back and be ready to train properly. So it was no wonder he came back really refreshed. His first 2026 start in Pomeroy he scored three goals. That was a big factor.
“He is possibly hitting his prime, 26 years of age. He was just in great form this year, in great physical shape. Great mental shape.”
It was, because of what it meant to everyone after, O’Connor’s favourite and most enjoyable season.
“The one that I found that gave most satisfaction to the people of Kerry and that then gives me the most satisfaction. Sure, that’s why we’re in it. We’re in it, first of all to enjoy it and then to give pleasure to people. It is the number one pastime in Kerry, being interested in football.
“So I said it to the lads during the year that we were privileged to be doing something that we love doing. Something that gives such satisfaction to a whole county, sure that’s a great pursuit to be involved in.”
He continues, “From that point of view it probably was the most satisfying but I’ll tell you, they’re all hard won. 2004 for me personally was a big one because it gave me some credibility.
“I was replacing a legend like Páidí (ÓSé). As I said before it wouldn’t be much good, the county board putting me in to replace Páidí if I hadn’t been able to win an All-Ireland. That gave me some credibility and I don’t think the other successes would have followed if I hadn’t won that one.”
With a team holiday in America in the coming week, they will milk this for a while yet.
The 42
