O’Connor: It’s all about speed

Tomás O’Connor believes the introduction of the black card has changed football so dramatically, that speed has become more important than strength.

O’Connor has become one of the most dangerous target men in football in recent years but lost 5kgs in bulk this year with emphasis clearly being placed on pace by teams this season.

“We came in at the start of the year and [nutritionist] Alan Kenny gave us a programme about eating proper food,” O’Connor recalled. “We all lost a bit of weight. I suppose the game has changed a little bit as well in the sense that the black card is going to rule out a lot of that contact so you maybe don’t need to be as big as you were other years. So if you were carrying an extra 2 or 3kgs that was unnecessary, it was no harm losing it.

“I don’t feel any weaker, that’s for sure. [I’m just] getting around the pitch a bit more and maybe clocking up a bit more high intensity running during the game as well.”

Initially seen as an outlet to win possession and lay it off, this season he is trying to prove a bigger scoring threat.

“I scored 2-4 in the league this year. I was probably a bit more conscious of it this year, just to change it up and be a bit more unpredictable. It was something I wanted to improve on.”