Jack O'Connor: ‘Age doesn’t come into it. I don’t feel like an old man yet’

ON THE VERGE: Kerry manager Jack O'Connor stands for a portrait during a Kerry Football Media Conference at Gleneagle Hotel. Pic: Eóin Noonan/Sportsfile

For a man who doesn’t look 61, who stays lean walking the boithrins and climbs of Toorsaleen, Jack O’Connor is taking some convincing that he could become the oldest ever All-Ireland SFC winning manager on Sunday.

“Really? Jeez, I didn't realise that. What about Boylan? What age was he winning the last one?” O’Connor asks. 

Boylan was 56 when he helped land Meath the 1999 title. As luck might have it, O’Connor will be spared the honour: Dr. Eamonn O’Sullivan was 65 when he trained Kerry to an All-Ireland title to the eighth and last time in 1962.

“I keep myself in good shape,” O’Connor says. “I keep myself fit and I've the energy and most importantly the time to give it. The time to go and meet players, the time to think things through clearly without being in a rush. You can't put a price on that. Age doesn't come into it. I don't feel like an old man yet anyway. Like Ronald Reagan said long ago, experience is more important than age.” 

O’Connor could never be accused of being stuck in his ways. Going back to his first spell in charge of Kerry, he was employing the expertise of a sports psychologist in Declan Coyle. It didn’t go down too well with some of the greats at the time but a performance coach was something this current crop of players had been crying out for going back to 2020.

Peter Keane brought in explorer Pat Falvey last year and this season O’Connor has former Clare hurler Tony Griffin, who he first worked with in Kildare, assisting the players. Knowing what it is to play at an elite level generates respect between Griffin and the group, says the manager.

“There aren’t that many people in the country doing that kind of work. He’s an added advantage in that he was an inter-county hurler, an All-Star. He knows what it’s like to be in a dressing room and the subtlety of saying the right thing. Another fella who could be good in his field could go into a dressing room and say the wrong thing because he wouldn’t be used to that kind of pressure there is.

“Just to give you an example: We were delayed an hour before the Mayo (quarter-final) game and that was a tough hour because players are wired up, they’re starting to warm up and then they’re told it’s going to extra-time and they start another warm-up and then it’s going to penalties.

“Having the likes of Tony, getting the players together, calming them down, reassuring them that everything will be fine, that’s really important and I think it’s an advantage him having been an inter-county player himself, to find the right words there.” 

O’Connor firmly believes Griffin has helped the players build up their levels of resistance but the Ballyea man will earn his corn trying to inoculate players from the hype consuming Kerry since the dramatic win over Dublin.

Having said that, the man at the helm is intimate with expectation. “I think this is my eighth or ninth final (eight if you include the 2000 replay against Galway — five as manager (2004, ‘05, ‘06, ‘09, ‘11), three as selector with Páídí), and I know the pitfalls where players are in a completely different bubble to supporters.

“Supporters see All-Ireland finals as occasions with razzmatazz and atmosphere whereas players have to divorce themselves most of the time from that. They have to enjoy the build-up, of course, they can’t go into a cave for two weeks, but they have to understand that this is about performing on the big day and not getting carried away with any sideshows or tickets and looking after their partners the night before and all this.

“You have to absolutely park all of that stuff and concentrate on the performance because, like I said already, the Dublin performance will be well forgotten about if we can’t get over the line now.” 

As much as the battle with Dublin should stand to his charges, it taxed them too. “First of all, there’s a huge emotional toll that a game takes on you. A game of that proportion. It certainly took it on me anyway and I’m sure it took it on the players because there’s a huge build-up to a game like that and the game itself was very intense. Then it’s just mayhem afterwards, you don’t sleep well the night of a game. Well, I don’t anyway.” 

Just three goals conceded all year, only two from play and suffering one defeat in 12 games sounds peachy but O’Connor wouldn’t agree everything is going too well. “We left Dublin back into it, we gave them a breakaway goal which from a turnover, when we were in control and down the other end, we weren't just being clinical with our chances. We missed about a minimum three or four scores that would have given us daylight and given us a bit of a comfort zone. We have plenty to work on. We feel we're not close to perfect at all. We think there's a fair bit to go.” 

The advantage Kerry garnered from beating Dublin, O’Connor senses Galway benefitted from the same in dismissing Armagh in their sensational quarter-final. “Whatever bounce we would have got from winning a pretty dramatic game the last day, they would have got that bounce and even more from inside that dressing room after winning a game like that - where they had it won, they threw it away, or almost threw it away once or twice and then to come back and win that type of game, that’s real money in the bank.”