'What's to be gained by slating people? It's the easiest thing in the world' - Jack O'Connor

The 42

16 hours ago

YOU CAN HAVE your 38 All-Ireland titles, but you can never rely on that muscle-memory as much as proving people wrong.
And in Kerry, that frequently means your own people. While most counties can count on a fairly partisan media, that's not always been the case with Kerry. And Jack O'Connor in particular.
The Dromid man left all in no doubt where the motivation for their nine-point win over Armagh came from.
'Look, one of the great motivators in life is trying to prove people wrong,' he explained.
'We were being portrayed as a one-man team. I saw somebody writing this morning that said the only Kerry player worthy of being called a Kerry player was David Clifford.
'Now, David is a great player but David will tell you that there was a fair supporting cast there today. We think we have a lot of good footballers but I think sometimes we're being judged on different criteria to other teams.'
He continued, 'For example, Dublin got beaten by Meath in the Leinster championship and I didn't see any ex-Dublin players coming out slating the team or slating the management like we had down south in our county. There's a sense of commitment to the team and a sense of loyalty to the team. Unfortunately a few pundits down our way let themselves down in that regard.'
Asked if criticism from within was something that you sign up for as a Kerry manager – O'Connor did detail the sense of isolation he felt in his first spell in charge in his autobiography 'Keys To The Kingdom'.
He wasn't buying it though.
'I'm not giving out about it from my own point of view. I just gave the example that I never hear Dublin's ex-players slating the team,' said O'Connor.
'They're loyal to the group and they're loyal to the county and they give their support.
'What's to be gained by slating people? It's the easiest thing in the world. I'm in the business of building people up. I'm not in the business of knocking people.
'I spent all my life coaching underage school kids, minors, Under-21s, seniors, at every level. I'm in the business of building people, not knocking people.'
He added, 'I'd ask people who are knocking that group and knocking people involved with the group to look in the mirror and say, 'What have you contributed? What have you contributed to Kerry football off the field?'
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'You know what I mean? It's very easy to knock people. Go away and coach a team. Go away and coach a development squad. Go away and coach a minor team. That's how you help Kerry football, not knocking people.'
O'Connor drew comparisons with Kerry's run of form this year, until their transformation here, with the 2009 season; when they lost a Munster semi-final replay to Cork before struggling past Longford, Sligo and Antrim before walloping Dublin in the 'startled earwigs' quarter-final and a 17-point win that propelled them onto Sam Maguire success.
Shane Ryan celebrates. James Crombie / INPHO James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
'Look, when everybody even down in our own county was throwing in the towel with us, I said in the dressing room after the Cavan game, 'Lads, I've been here before where we've been completely written off.'
'And a Kerry team written off in Croke Park are dangerous because it just takes a bit of the heat off. It allows them to play with a kind of freedom and abandon. That's what you saw there today.
'Maybe it was very tough for Armagh. Our mantra this morning was, 'We have to flip the script. The script has been written that Armagh have this game won and we have to flip that script.'
'Every breaking ball you win, every turnover you win, every score you get is a chip off the block there and it's a way of flipping that script. We did it block by block.'
How best to describe their purple patch?
Let's go for the raw data. From the 43rd minute to the 56th minute, Armagh had 14 kickouts. They won three of them. They sent two over the sideline and Kerry pinched nine of them. They scored 0-13.
It was a bloodbath.
'We felt we were going to give a big performance. We felt we were going to give a really big performance. We had no idea where that would take us. You don't know,' said O'Connor.
'I mean, you see the teams up in Ulster and they're knocking lumps out of each other and playing very high-calibre games. People dismissed our games against Cork in the Munster Championship and in the round-robin series.
'We thought Cork were a good team. We thought Cork against Kerry in Páirc Uí Chaoimh are a right good team. They're big, they're physical, they left their mark on us, they toughened us up, they hardened us and we lost a few players up there. But I think people misread our situation. They dismissed Cork a bit and maybe they just misread the situation a small bit.'
David Clifford. Laszlo Geczo / INPHO Laszlo Geczo / INPHO / INPHO
He added, 'I don't think too many people outside the camp saw that performance there. But we were very, very determined. There was ferocious determination in the camp that we weren't going to let the season fizzle out after the Meath game.
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'It may have been difficult for Armagh not to listen to the outside noise where we were being written off and they were being written up. We know we have players who can perform here.
'The game Seán O'Shea had there, when that was a game in the first half and halfway through the second half, that man put in some display. I don't know what he finished up with. But him and David, David was really good again.
'Paudie coming in at half-time, he's a high-calibre player and it just gave everybody a lift. Once he got the ball in his hands, you knew he was going to do something with it.
'It's funny the way things happen. But we were fairly sure leaving the hotel this morning that we were going to give this a real rattle. We just need to steady up now and get our feet back on the ground.
'It's a big performance and a big Kerry support came up and backed the team, which is great. We love seeing that because a lot of people had us written off during the week. But obviously the supporters felt there was another kick in the team.
'They've seen it happen before. They saw it happen in 2006, they saw it happen in 2009. Kerry is a proud county and we weren't going to fizzle out of the Championship without a hell of a fight. We saw that fight out there today.'
So now for Tyrone. No lack of motivation there.
It would appear Paul Geaney is not far off a return. Tony Brosnan and Diarmuid O'Connor too. Tom O'Sullivan had to leave the field injured. That will all become clear in the early part of the week.
All eyes will now be turned on the Kerry pundits on the week ahead.
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