Seán O’Shea’s leading role for Kerry impresses Declan O’Sullivan

For someone who is only 22, O’Sullivan - who once owned the Kerry number 11 shirt now occupied by O’Shea - remarked that it is impossible not to be impressed by O’Shea’s “overall game”

Thu, 01 Jul, 2021 - 06:00

Eoghan Cormican

Seán O’Shea’s outstanding temperament and leadership skills far bely his young age, former Kerry footballer Declan O’Sullivan has said.

Echoing the sentiments of Éamonn Fitzmaurice on these pages earlier this week, O’Sullivan — who once owned the Kerry number 11 shirt now occupied by O’Shea — said the Kenmare man has established himself as one of the leaders of this Kerry team.

For someone who is only 22, O’Sullivan remarked that it is impossible not to be impressed by O’Shea’s “overall game”.

“I’m a big fan of Seánie,” began the Kerry U20 manager.

“I was lucky enough to be involved with Jack O’Connor at minor level in 2015 when Seanie was still a minor and then we had him for a year at U21 before he went into the seniors. He has developed his game fantastically well. He has a great attitude, great temperament.

“He’s kept developing his game, and he’s hungry. You can see in his demeanour, his body language is very strong in terms of showing leadership on the field. For such a young guy, you’d have to be very, very impressed with his overall game.

“His ability and his kicking ability is not in question, it’s there for everybody to see. But he has so much more to his overall game that it’s so, so impressive.

“His temperament and leadership skills, for such a young fella, really stand out.”

O’Shea was Kerry’s outstanding performer during the county’s opening round Munster Championship win last Saturday, kicking the game’s opening four points and ending the evening as the Kingdom’s top-scorer with 1-7.

Most noticeable was the amount of time he spent in the inside line against Clare, with O’Sullivan expecting to see more of the 2019 All-Star operating close to the opposition goal as the summer progresses.

“It’s a strength of his that he’s a very flexible player. The fact they can use Seanie in that position is healthy.” Alongside O’Shea in the Kerry forward unit, O’Sullivan declared himself very impressed with the recent performances of Paudie Clifford. The older of the Clifford brothers made his first championship start at the weekend.

“Paudie, a bit like myself, plays for a club lower down the divisions. And even if you are playing well, people say, ‘Can he do it at the higher level?’ East Kerry allowed him to show that he can do it at a higher level. He’s stepped up to the plate in every jump he’s done and has settled in very well to the seniors.

“The great thing about Paudie is that he matches his ability in terms of kicking and scoring with a real appetite for hard work. You need that when you’re playing the likes of Dublin and Mayo. You need to be defensively contributing just as much as attacking. Paudie has that.” The two-time All-Ireland winning captain believes the current Kerry team have “definitely developed” since last year and disagreed with the comments of Fitzmaurice who last week said there will be question marks over this group until they win an All-Ireland or beat Dublin.

“Question marks is maybe the wrong word. I remember when we first came on the scene in 2002, 2003, there were a lot of us kind of in a similar situation, and it can be unfair to players, they need time to settle in because it’s a huge step up from minor to senior. And you’ve to learn some lessons along the way. Last year was a very valuable lesson that you can’t look too far ahead.

“They know that success is winning the All-Ireland, but to be fair to them they are performing very well this year, so I wouldn’t have a huge amount of question marks over them at the minute.

“What was very noticeable from the game against Clare was the overall strength in depth of the panel had definitely developed. You can also see that the conditioning of the team, in particular some of the younger guys who have come through those minor successes, they really seem to be developing into men now, physically strong, hard-running players.”

Switching focus to Dublin, the five-time All-Ireland winner doesn’t see the champions being weakened by the loss of so much experience in Cian O’Sullivan, Paul Mannion, Michael Darragh Macauley, and Paddy Andrews.

“Jim Gavin was very shrewd in his time. He kept introducing players and while it might not have been obvious to the outside people looking in that they needed new players to come in because they were going well, he kept introducing two or three players into the team every year. That means the transition that would normally take place doesn’t now apply to this Dublin team.

“The loss of those players might be felt more around the general set-up and the standards and behaviours of the group.

“You need some older guys there making sure that the younger fellas coming in know what is required to play for Dublin.”