O’Neill adjusts to watching brief as he dreams of Premier success
Four seasons with Tipperary entitles the Kildare man to more than a degree of partisanship. He was at the drawn game, screaming his head off. “I’d usually be calm on the line but I lost it near the end. I went berserk in the stand,” he says.
The Kerry selector’s connection with a lot of the Tipperary players remains strong. Of the team that started on September 7, he had worked with everyone, bar Cathal Barrett and Kieran Bergin.
“They’re a fantastic group. I was there four years and I’ve really fond memories. There’s been weddings in the meantime and parties and what not. I’ve my own wedding coming up and they’ll be there as well because that’s the bond we have.”
Tipperary changed O’Neill, in the sense he was primarily a football man before it. Even though the Cork IT lecturer’s attentions have been focused on Kerry, he now watches as much hurling as he does football. As a coach and selector with Kerry, O’Neill has had a bigger say in this latest triumph compared to 2010 under Liam Sheedy but some demarcation lines are blurred.
“From the players’ perspective, and being involved with them, it’s no different. Pretty much, you give your life to training, coaching, being on the phone, making sessions, designing sessions — that’s no different.
“On a personal note, I was athletic development coach with Tipp and that was a defined role as such. Then you had the management team who I worked closely with. Whereas in Kerry when you’re a coach and a selector, as I was this year, you’re part of that team. It’s almost a greater sense of responsibility and, because you win, almost a greater sense of pride. The relationship with the players and group of warriors you work with is no different at all.”
He’s not surprised to see the likes of Tipperary and Cork recruit further non-hurling expertise, such as former athletes Gary Ryan and David Matthews.
“I think it’s a skill set to be a physical trainer. Gary’s background is athletics although he used to be a very good soccer player when he was younger in Nenagh. I think the good thing about the athletic development side of things is that people come from all background in courses to study. That’s what I work at so it’s great to see all the backgrounds coming in. Are counties ready to take people in who are not from that respective background? That’s a big move and a brave move.
“Liam [Sheedy] did it with myself and Eamon [O’Shea] has done it with Gary. Mick Dempsey has been a revelation in Kilkenny. He’s a brilliant guy. I think from the athletic side of things, if you’re good at what you do, it’ll work. But from a coaching perspective, you’ve to put a lot more thought into it. If coaching isn’t right, you’re never going to win anything. If the conditioning side isn’t right, you have a chance, you just have to overcome some of the weaknesses in your preparation.”
There are similarities too between Kerry and Tipperary. Both were written off at junctures this season. O’Neill took great delight proving the knockers wrong last weekend.
“For me, it was off the chart for two reasons, really. The first that no one gave us a chance early on in the year and even up until the Munster final, and there’s something very gratifying about proving your critics and even your supporters wrong. People don’t think you’re as good as a you are and we always knew in the camp that we had the potential to be that good. Maybe we hadn’t performed but we had the potential.
“The second thing is that in the build-up to this match, it was all about ‘can you defeat the system?’ and for me, there was a lot of hyperbole about the match and opposition. We just focused on our own performance and that’s what won it for us in the end.”
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