How Kerry's Joe O'Connor overcame injury and played his way into Footballer of the Year contention

The Journal

3 days ago

JACK O'CONNOR WAS in Austin Stack Park on the evening that Joe O'Connor suffered his ACL injury, a few weeks after Kerry's 2022 All-Ireland win.
'I was at the game, just right here under the stand,' recalled the manager.
That was Jack speaking in early January 2024 on the same piece of Tralee pitch where Joe had crumpled and received treatment 15 months earlier in the 18th minute of a county SFC Group 3 win for Austin Stacks over town rivals Na Gaeil.
The comeback had gone well, O'Connor lining out at midfield in a near 20-point rout of Tipperary in a McGrath Cup game at the start of 2024. He scored a goal late on for good measure, palming home a Gavin White pass.
It was the very best he could have hoped for after two full years of injury torment.
Even before the ACL setback, O'Connor had played through the 2022 Championship with an injury to the same right knee. He initially injured it in the final quarter of the Munster club final, in early 2022, hobbling off in Stacks' defeat to St Finbarr's in Thurles.
As far as timing goes, it was the very worst for a player handed the county captaincy as a result of his club's championship win. O'Connor didn't make it back for a league game with Kerry in 2022 until Round 6, started just once — against Tyrone in Round 7 — and was reduced to an impact sub role in the Championship as Kerry claimed All-Ireland title number 38.
Tom O'Hanlon / INPHO
Tom O'Hanlon / INPHO / INPHO
Only Jack knows for certain if Joe's four introductions that summer, in the 67th, 65th, 66th and 72nd minute of games, were down to necessity or the fact that he was the Kingdom captain.
Even with David Moran retiring after the 2022 win, O'Connor was still behind Diarmuid O'Connor and Jack Barry – the 2023 midfield pairing – and probably Adrian Spillane in the jersey queue.
That January night against Tipp, he was replaced by former AFL player Stefan Okunbor, another Tralee native with a chequered injury history desperate to kick on as an engine room regular. Okunbor had played five times in the 2023 league as well, so had his foot in the door.
A little over 18 months on, O'Connor's rehabilitation is complete. Remarkably, considering how 2022 and 2023 went for him, he has started all 15 of Kerry's Championship games across 2024 and 2025, and all but two of their league games in that period.
Barring a disaster in Sunday's All-Ireland final against Donegal, he looks a decent bet for an All-Star award and, with a fair wind, could even be named Footballer of the Year.
Okunbor, meanwhile, hasn't played a minute of football for Kerry in 2025.
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O'Connor in action during Kerry's quarter-final win over Armagh.
James Lawlor / INPHO
James Lawlor / INPHO / INPHO
'While the ACL is a really serious injury to pick up, I think it helped Joe O'Connor because there's so much rehab that goes into it,' said Boylesports Gaelic Games ambassador Aaron Kernan ahead of the All-Ireland SFC final.
'You build an engine that you probably don't get the time to build when you're fully fit and you're just constantly going, from county season to club season. I think that injury has actually proved to be a huge positive for him in terms of physically how he's been able to develop his engine.
'He's an absolute man-mountain when it comes to that long, contested kick. He's getting up, being really physical, breaking it. And his running power, it's immense.
'It's also been infectious, what he's doing. You see him operating at that level, the next player then follows suits and it catches on. Whatever about the scores and the rest of it, that aspect for me has been something that's really stood out. The work rate that he, and Kerry, have shown over the past two games in particular has just gone to a whole new level.'
O'Connor was Man of the Match in the marathon extra-time win over Cork in Munster too, scoring 1-1, including the game-hinging goal and drawing the high challenge – after a spectacular one-handed fetch – that led to Sean Brady's red card.
Kernan may be correct about O'Connor adding a couple of extra turbos to his engine during that period across 2023 but he was already blessed with rhino power and line-breaking speed.
And those assets almost took him away from Gaelic football completely with O'Connor excelling as a rugby player with Tralee RFC as a teenager. He lined out for a Munster U18 clubs side in 2016 – alongside current Clare footballer Ikem Ugwueru, who was playing for Ennis RFC – when they beat Connacht to clinch the interpro title. It was Munster's first win at the grade in 13 years and O'Connor lasted the duration of a landmark win.
He went on to play for Young Munster while at college in Limerick, and was involved with the Munster Academy, but the draw of club and county activity in Kerry won out.
He has already captained an All-Ireland winning team, lifting the Sam Maguire Cup jointly with Sean O'Shea in 2022, but it's only now that his senior county career is really lifting off.
Chances are O'Connor will finish this year's Championship having played every single minute of it, all nine of Kerry's games.
'He had some semi-final and if he performs to the same level in the final, albeit you'd probably need (David) Clifford not shooting the lights out, Joe O'Connor would definitely be a Footballer of the Year option then,' said Dublin great Diarmuid Connolly.
'But Kerry have to win this final, I'm still sweet on Donegal. I think Donegal have a better squad and a better chance to win this.'
A resumption of the Joe O'Connor-Diarmuid O'Connor midfield partnership could leave the Dublin great eating his words. And Joe O'Connor celebrating a success that would mean so much more to him than when he captained Kerry to the All-Ireland three years ago.
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Written by Paul Keane and originally published on The 42 whose award-winning team produces original content that you won't find anywhere else: on GAA, League of Ireland, women's sport and boxing, as well as our game-changing rugby coverage, all with an Irish eye. Subscribe
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