Where next for codebreaking coach Cian O'Neill after Kerry exit? 

Cian O'Neill before the All-Ireland final. Pic: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

They still rave about Cian O’Neill in Tipperary. Only recently in the Croke Park press box, former captain Shane McGrath was reminiscing about how vital he was to their All-Ireland SHC winning success of 2010 and stopping Kilkenny’s five-in-a-row bid.

“Hell of an operator,” he gushed.

In the 17 seasons that have passed since, O’Neill has not spent a single season away from the inter-county coalface – Tipperary (2008-11); Mayo (2012); Kerry (2013-15); Kildare (2016-19); Cork (2020-21); Galway (2022-4); Kerry (2025-’26). Throw in the Limerick footballers in 2006 and ’07 and he’s been at it for 21 consecutive seasons.

Tipperary are the anomaly. All but his two years with Liam Sheedy and one with Declan Ryan in the county were football-related; all but his four seasons as manager of his native Kildare were in football coaching.

Just over two weeks since Kerry lost to Mayo, O’Neill is out the door after two years and available again. 

The sense is his second stint in the county was coming to an end regardless of the final result and Kieran Donaghy will have a larger coaching role in 2027.

O’Neill won’t be short of suitors in the football realm but the understanding is he may fancy a return to hurling. That after all these years there is a project or two in the game that whets his appetite.

Tipperary wasn’t his only experience of the smaller ball game. In 2009, he also worked with Ben O’Connor’s Newtownshandrum as they landed Cork and Munster senior titles.

“The difference (trainers) Cian O’Neill and Willie McCormack have made is unbelievable,” O’Connor’s twin brother Jerry told this newspaper before Newtown beat Ballygunner in that year’s provincial final. “Even just having a fresh voice. There’s a bit of bluffing going on around the place in clubs over teams who mightn’t have a great idea of what they’re doing, but with these lads everything is done for a reason.”

As Ben O’Connor sits down next week with the Cork County Board to review this past season and plan for 2027, the bush telegraph suggests he and O’Neill, head of the sport, leisure and childhood studies department in MTU in Bishopstown, could link up again.

When history repeated itself in such a painful way for Cork, O’Connor might feel there is the need for a different perspective. Even if it is not O’Neill, the management team may have an addition or two for next season.

There are whispers that Waterford are also in the market for someone of O’Neill’s ability. New manager Stephen Molumphy has been assembling his backroom team that will include coaches/selectors Shane Briggs, Ken McGrath and Nigel Skehan. 

Mickey Comerford is strength and conditioning coach and there could be room for one more.

Time more so than the change in sport may be the only divide that O’Neill really has to negotiate if he is to return to hurling. 

Former Tipperary defender Declan Fanning told this newspaper in 2011 that the vast majority of O’Neill’s training sessions involved the hurley. If there was a cultural difference between the Newbridge man and the players, it was only in what vernacular was used.

“We used to give Cian a fair bit of a slagging about some of the phrases he would come up with. They wouldn’t be heard around Tipperary that much! We’d have fierce respect for him because he had everyone – not just the lads in the team – right for when it mattered.”

The confidence of O’Neill will be sure if he is to switch sports once more. 

“Sometimes people don’t like how you talk, they don’t like how you look, but all you can be is who you are,” he told the “Indo Sport” podcast late last year.

O’Neill is one of several sideline codebreakers but most have been managers. 

Denis Walsh managed Cork’s senior hurlers as he did Waterford’s footballers. Anthony Cunningham took charge of his native Galway’s hurlers as he did the Roscommon footballers, while Pat Gilroy oversaw both Dublin sides. 

Current Ballygunner hurling manager Jason Ryan enjoyed a fine spell as Wexford senior football boss.

When football is flourishing, it might be a strange time for one of its best minds to be contemplating a switch to hurling but O’Neill was never one for convention.