Stephen O’Brien prefers to wear than rust away as Kerry prepare to face Cork

EXPERIENCED CAMPAIGNER: Kerry's Stephen O'Brien makes a pass. Pic credit: Ben Brady, Inpho.

You’re not going to land Stephen O’Brien with the elder statesman tag in the Kerry panel. No, siree.

“No, Paul Geaney probably is,” he clarifies to the journalist who had the audacity to suggest it. “He came in, in ‘11, playing a few league games so he’s a couple of years on me yet.”

As it turned out, Geaney only lined out in one league game 13 years ago. He didn’t feature in the league again until the first round of the 2014 National League against Dublin when O’Brien and Paul Murphy, who has the most appearances for Kerry in the current panel, made their senior debuts.

For a few months anyway, all three will be 33 when Murphy celebrates his next birthday in August. It’s natural to consider this season will be their triumvirate’s swansong. Had they seen off Dublin last July, would they still be there?

O’Brien can only speak for himself.

“Look, I suppose you’re dealing in hypotheticals but at that stage you're coming off back-to-back All-Irelands and would the motivation have changed then? Quite possibly, yeah, but you are always looking ahead as a sportsman.

“You are not really thinking about the past. It’s ‘can I help the team this year?’ And I probably would have come to the same decision because I felt like I had more to add.”

O’Brien has plenty of reason to feel fresh. A knee injury had kept him out of the entire 2023 season. He was making cameo appearances off the bench in the championship before being sprung into a starting role for the final.

A hamstring issue held him back in the early part of this year’s Division 1 run but he made appearances off the bench against Tyrone and Roscommon last month and began the final round fixture with Galway.

For a player who ascension into the senior panel was blighted by knee issues, he’s done exceptionally well to have been available for selection for effectively nine full seasons.

“Injury prevention is probably the most important skill in the game because if you stay on the training field at all you’re just going to improve and you see some of the Premier League soccer players.

"I remember John O’Shea said something like that before with (Manchester) United that he wasn’t the most talented or whatever in his age group, but he was just always on the field and always training.

“You see some fellas even now with the seniors who just can't seem to get a clean run without injury. I’m lucky that I haven’t had too many other injuries, a few small issues with my hamstrings, but manageable.”

More knee surgery may be required after his career but O’Brien can park that for now.

“Nobody wants to go through that and maybe I don’t have to go through it, but I wouldn’t change what I’ve achieved, what I’ve done for the past and my father-in-law he says he’d rather wear away than rust away, so it’s a good expression to keep in the back of the mind.”

Derry’s Conor Glass and Stephen O'Brien of Kerry after the game. Pic Credit: James Crombie, Inpho.

At the end of February, O’Brien and his wife Tara celebrated the birth of baby Nolan.

“He actually came on my birthday, the best birthday present you could ever have. I was back actually for the Tyrone game, which was the first weekend of March so it was nice to get back in with the group and they were all congratulating me and things, which was cool. He’s been great, we’re delighted with him.”

Joining the band of forward fathers in the Kerry set-up, O’Brien can lean on his old college-mate Geaney who became a father for the third time earlier this year and David Clifford for advice.

Settled and working in Cork as well as having studied there, Saturday’s Munster semi-final has extra resonance for O’Brien.

“It’s always one we highlight on the calendar. Obviously it’s the age-old rivalry, what we were growing up going to games, especially when I started going to games Cork even were in the ascendancy, especially in Munster and things like that.

“I went to UCC as well so I’d know a few of them as well and living in Cork it definitely doesn’t lose any appeal. It wasn’t maybe the start to the league that they wanted, but they’ve rebounded well and played well towards the end of the league.”

Retaining Kerry’s proud record of not losing to Cork in championship in Fitzgerald Stadium since 1995 will an obvious objective this weekend. Although, Mayo deflated that air of infallibility at the Killarney venue last summer.

“It was something we referenced in other games through the course of my career so we were bitterly disappointed to lose that record and, you could say maybe, does the All-Ireland series take a small bit away from it?

"But we were proud of the record and we were sad to see it go.”