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Irish Times
12-07-2025
- Sport
- Irish Times
Jack O'Connor keeps making his case in Kerry court of opinion
In the Kerry court of opinion every judge is a hanging judge and in the summer of 2009, Jack O'Connor was a condemned man. In these cases, there is no right to appeal, though the court may change its mind, like the woman in the Billy Joel song. At the time, the team was in a tailspin. Cork had beaten them by eight points, which, in old money, was a thrashing. Losing to Cork carried extra levies and taxes. Everyone suffers. The manager pays. 'We look like a team with no game plan, no idea of who or what we want to be,' wrote Colm Cooper in his autobiography. 'Worse, there's not a shred of hunger in what we're doing. People are telling us we have no heart.' It was the first year of O'Connor's second stint as manager. In the interlude he had written his autobiography, which had included notes from private conversations and fly-on-the-wall scenes from the team's inner sanctum. Some people who couldn't put the book down complained that he had been indiscreet. Some of the players felt there had been a breach of trust. Some of them would later write books. READ MORE In the first part of the season, the manager's memoirs had lingered in the air, like a chill. By the summer, it was overtaken by wildfires. 'We were going through turmoil,' says Darran O'Sullivan, who was the Kerry captain that year. Defeat by Cork railroaded them into a qualifier run against Longford, Sligo and Antrim, as it turned out. Two teams who had been promoted from Division Four in the spring, and one who had been relegated from Division Three. Colm Cooper scores a goal for Kerry in a pivotal meeting with Dublin in 2009. Photograph: Donall Farmer/Inpho O'Sullivan was dropped for the Longford game but came on. Kerry won by four points. The coverage was peppered with 'limped' and 'unconvincing' and other expressions of tut-tutting. O'Connor was frazzled. 'I didn't play great, none of us did,' says O'Sullivan. 'Then I got a call from Jack giving out that I didn't work hard enough. He gave me a right earful on the phone. And I was saying to myself, 'That's not right.' He ended up ringing me back the following day. 'I've rewatched it,' he said. 'You actually had more tackles than anyone.'' Worse was to follow. Sligo came to Tralee the following week because Fitzgerald Stadium in Killarney was occupied by the Pussycat Dolls. In their master fixtures plan the county board assumed they would have a commercial opening on a qualifier weekend. With only a couple of minutes left in a one-score game, Diarmuid Murphy saved a penalty from Dave Kelly. Kerry drove away from the crash with their wing mirror hanging off and their bumper scraping the road. Won by a point. 'I'm sitting there in the dressingroom afterwards and I can't believe how bad things feel,' wrote Cooper. That evening he was gripped by cabin fever, so he went by himself to Jade's bar in Killarney and had a few pints watching golf on television, not caring who saw him. Elsewhere that evening, Tomás Ó Sé flouted the drinking ban too. Both of them were smoked out. Jack O'Connor gives an instruction during the 2009 clash with Dublin. Photograph: Cathal Noonan/Inpho The circus went on for days. In midweek there was a players' meeting, without the management, designed for bloodletting and contrition. Cooper and Ó Sé apologised and were dropped for the next game. The story broke on Friday's Irish Examiner. 'Kerry All Stars dropped,' ran the front-page splash. Kerry played well for about 15 minutes against Antrim and survived. On the train home, the draw for the All-Ireland quarter-finals were made; Dublin saved Kerry from themselves. 'When we got Dublin in Croke Park, it was like someone turned the lights on,' says O'Sullivan. 'It was that simple. You just needed a game to get the blood flowing.' Dublin were favourites; Kerry beat them by 17 points. 'I wrote in the Examiner that I thought Dublin would win,' says Dara Ó Cinnéide, the broadcaster and former Kerry captain. 'Afterwards Eamon Fitzmaurice texted me – he was a selector with Jack at the time. 'You f**ker, you had no faith in us.' We're great friends. He said it in the right spirit.' In 2009, the crisis in Kerry's summer lasted from the middle of June to the August Bank Holiday Weekend. In the first minute of the quarter final Cooper scored a goal into the Hill 16 End and, in hindsight, that was the moment the trouble ended. Everything is telescoped by the split season now, but the explosion of discord and keening this summer lasted about a fortnight. Kerry lost badly to Meath, won badly against Cavan, were speared by the commentariat at home and abroad and were dismissed against Armagh. After that spin cycle, Kerry's linen was clean again. Or a grey white, from repeated hot washes. In his third stint in the job, O'Connor had experienced this kind of stuff before. He couldn't have endured this long without having the wherewithal to cope. 'One thing about Jack was that, while he'd let on that he's thick-skinned enough,' wrote Tomás Ó Sé in his autobiography, 'I think sometimes things got to him.' That must be true and there must have been times when he bent under the strain of continuous assessment and fantastical standards. Jack O'Connor in conversation with Tadhg Kennelly during a game against Cork in 2009. Photograph: Cathal Noonan/Inpho He was first appointed in October 2003, on the week his mother died. 'Johneen a chroí, don't take that job at all, they'll only be giving out to you,' were his mother's last words to him. He knew she was right. 'Look, Jack is at his best when he's being questioned,' says Fitzmaurice, who played under him and worked alongside him. 'He's a ferocious competitor. When I was on the other side of the table – as senior manager and he was under-21 manager – and he was looking for players, he wouldn't have been looking at the big picture with the senior team. 'But when the shoe was on the other foot – when he was the senior manager – if anyone came looking for anyone they were strictly off-limits. He has that. He's just a complete competitor. I think that's central to his personality.' In the 2006 season, during his first stint in the job, there was another episode of turbulence that threatened to blow Kerry off course. Just like in 2009, it started with a wounding defeat to Cork, this time in a replay. That was the day when the Kerry captain Declan O'Sullivan was taken off. It is often recalled that he was booed by a rump of Kerry followers as he was leaving the field, but, in a sense, it was crueller than that: they cheered the fact that he was coming off. Declan O'Sullivan leads Kerry out against Cork in 2006 before things took a turn for the worse. Photograph: Donall Farmer/Inpho 'The treatment Declan got was unheard of,' says O'Sullivan. 'It was probably the worst experience I ever had in terms of looking at the crowd going, 'What the f**k are ye at.' You'll take all the abuse in the world, but that was just wrong.' An hour after the match, O'Connor convened a crisis meeting in Hayfield Manor, a plush hotel near UCC on Cork's southside. 'At the meeting, people say their pieces but nothing's really resolved,' writes Cooper. ''The knockers will be out in force now,' Jack tells us.' O'Sullivan is O'Connor's clubmate and friend and for two weeks he agonised about dropping him and, in the end, he did. In the meantime, there was hardly enough bandwidth for the kaleidoscope of salacious stories. 'There is such a poisonous atmosphere around the place,' writes O'Connor in his autobiography. 'The poison gets magnified and turned around on us in the papers. Stories that the Ó Sé's have been attempting to pick the team. Walk-outs. Bust-ups. Attempted coups. You could go into every story and knock it on the head but why dignify bullshit like that. There's kicks in the cojones on every page I look at. 'Different things keep me going. Bloody mindedness. Determination. This feeling of closeness with the team.' For the next match against Longford, they relocated Kieran Donaghy to full-forward as a target man with jazz hands. For Kerry that summer, the oldest gambit in Gaelic football was both reductive and visionary. 'We saw it in the book especially how much that summer annoyed Jack,' says Fitzmaurice, who was still a player back then. 'It was a new journey for him because he had never been through the qualifiers before. Donaghy's personality energised the whole group [that summer].' Kerry's jazz-handed target man Kieran Donaghy in 2006. Photograph: Cathal Noonan/Inpho Over the last month, Kerry's issues were injuries and form. In their spectacular recovery against Armagh there was no tactical masterstroke, but there was a manifest difference. The energy and the clarity came from somewhere. O'Connor had plumbed that well before. 'Jack is exceptionally good in these situations with his back to the well,' says Ó Cinnéide. 'He doesn't get to use that chip often. Kerry are always favourites and usually come out with a good result. But he's really, really good with his back to the wall. His instincts are really strong. You know, 'Who'll do well for me this week? Who'll do right for me here?' He'd have watched training the following week and he'd almost have known by a fella's body language who's genuinely up for it. He has great sensibilities around people like that. 'I had a conversation with somebody from the inner circle of Kerry football after the Meath game and I said, 'They need to be exposed to this. They need to hurt.' And Jack needed to do what he did as well [criticising pundits from Kerry and elsewhere in his quarter final press conference]. He needed to get that off his chest. But what's our next trick now? We've done the anger part. You can't depend on raw anger every time. You need something more sustainable.' It is a staggering 33 years since O'Connor first appeared as a selector with the Kerry under-21s. He is 64 now. In all that time, his capacity to absorb radiation has been extraordinary. 'I'm not bragging, I'm just giving you facts,' O'Connor said in a 2021 podcast. 'In my first four years coaching Kerry – '04, '05, '06, '09 – I won three leagues, three Munster championships and three All-Irelands. I got the height of abuse. That's a fact.' 'He's not part of any clique [in Kerry football],' says Ó Cinnéide. 'He's not part of any circle. Every time he loses a game the knives are sharpened. I did feel for him coming into the Armagh game. I thought he was a bit isolated. I thought he should have enough money in bank [with all his success].' In 2006 and 2009, there were no crash landings. Kerry's season ended on the steps of the Hogan, regardless of the upheavals. After the Armagh game, a fortnight ago, the cuts suddenly healed. Nothing unites Kerry like winning. For a Kerry manager, it is the only way to break even.
Business Insider
05-07-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
The Story So Far: The Boeing (NYSE:BA) Air India Crash
Happy Fourth of July to all of you out there, whether you are joining in the commemoration of the independence of the United States or simply just grateful it is Friday. But today, since there is likely to be no further movement on this front, it seemed like a good day to run down the story so far on one of the biggest stories to hit Boeing (BA) yet: the Air India disaster. And while we only have so much to consider so far, the news that has come out to date is presenting a deep and complex picture. Don't Miss TipRanks' Half-Year Sale Take advantage of TipRanks Premium at 50% off! Unlock powerful investing tools, advanced data, and expert analyst insights to help you invest with confidence. Make smarter investment decisions with TipRanks' Smart Investor Picks, delivered to your inbox every week. A Bit of History First, we should start with some history. Flight AI-171 departed from Ahmedabad, bound for London, on June 12. The flight was not aloft long; it had not even managed to get more than a thousand feet off the ground when the flight issued a Mayday transmission and subsequently crashed. Immediately thereafter, questions began to circulate in earnest. What happened? Did Boeing screw something up? Again? Or was it the airline that was to blame here? What little we knew at the time, and know so far, has begun to paint a picture. The idea that the airline was to blame seems a bit of a long shot. The plane, as it turns out, had been quite well maintained. One of its engines was nearly brand new, back in March 2025. The other engine was somewhat older, but had been part of a regular maintenance plan, which would check it again this December, before the incident. Thus, many turned on Boeing itself. After all, mechanical failures at Boeing were nothing new. We all remember the Alaska Airlines (ALK) incident that sent Boeing into a tailspin to begin with. It is only just now digging itself out of that one. So the thought that Boeing might have been responsible for this was actually quite rational. However, flaws in that logic emerged. The planes in question were not the same model; the Alaska Airlines flight was a 737 Max, while the Air India was a 787 Dreamliner. The Dreamliner, which had been in service for 14 years, had yet to record a single fatality in that entire period. It had seen some earlier incidents, yes. But this was the Dreamliner's first fatality in its entire service run. Potential Explanations Thus, we get to today. The black boxes have been pulled from the wreckage—both of them; there were two, after all—which includes flight data recorders and cockpit voice recorders. Reports note that it will be 'months' before Indian authorities release their findings, though early determinations have started to slip out. A New York Times report noted that the flight was perfectly normal, until it was not. Runway distance was adequate. Wing flaps and slats were extended. Takeoff was launched from a point that was, approximately, perfectly normal. So how did it go from 'relatively normal' to 'catastrophe' in the space of seconds? The Times report noted that the landing gear retraction process had failed, and that in turn suggests a reason why the plane's Ram Air Turbine (RAT) had been activated. This in turn suggests a complete failure of electrical power, hydraulic power, or even full engine power. We know that a dual engine failure is remarkably rare on a 787 Dreamliner. These things simply do not happen. But, on the Air India flight, it may well have done just that. One word that emerged like the specter of death from the Indian government, however, was 'sabotage.' The possibility of such a move was not ruled out as of Monday, and investigators are still looking into the notion that a vanishingly-rare-in-the-wild dual engine failure might indeed have been deliberate. Another unexpected wrinkle landed when what turned out to be a social media hoax began making the rounds. The hoax revealed a cause of the crash—a malfunctioning captain's chair—that caused the pilot to pull several controls accidentally. The co-pilot, the report noted, was unable to intervene, as the malfunctioning seat left the co-pilot unable to access any of the controls. This was later found to be false, though given the nature of the report and the information available at the time, this also proved to be a surprisingly plausible explanation. Still, in the end, it will take several months before this entire situation is ironed out, all the data analyzed, and an actionable conclusion reached. And it is a situation that most every Boeing investor will be following with great interest. Is Boeing a Good Stock to Buy Right Now? Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on BA stock based on 17 Buys, two Holds and one Sell assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 16.82% rally in its share price over the past year, the average BA price target of $226.42 per share implies 4.86% upside potential.
Daily Tribune
12-04-2025
- Business
- Daily Tribune
China minister says US tariffs will 'inflict serious harm" on poor nations
China's Commerce Minister Wang Wentao told the head of the World Trade Organization that US tariffs will "inflict serious harm" on poor nations, according to a ministry statement released Saturday. Washington and Beijing have been trading salvos of increasingly higher tariffs this month, raising fears of an intensifying trade war between the world's two largest economies that has sent global markets into a tailspin. Economists warn that the disruption in trade between the tightly integrated US and Chinese economies will increase prices for consumers and could spark a global recession. "These US 'reciprocal tariffs' will inflict serious harm on developing countries, especially the least developed countries, and could even trigger a humanitarian crisis," Wang told WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in a call on Friday, the statement said. "The United States has continuously introduced tariff measures, bringing enormous uncertainty and instability to the world, causing chaos both internationally and domestically within the US," Wang added. Beijing said Friday that its 125 percent tariffs on US goods would take effect on Saturday -- almost matching the staggering 145 percent levies imposed by Washington on Chinese goods entering the United States. But China indicated that it would ignore any further levies by US President Donald Trump because, Beijing said, it no longer makes economic sense for importers to buy from America. China also said it would file a lawsuit with the WTO over the latest round of levies and dismissed Trump's mounting brinkmanship as a "joke" and a "numbers game". Beijing's retaliation sparked fresh market volatility, with stocks seesawing, gold prices surging and US government bonds under pressure. Trade between the two economic rivals is vast, with sales of Chinese goods to the United States last year totalling more than $500 billion -- 16.4 percent of the country's exports, according to Beijing's customs data. Trump insisted Friday that his tariff policy was "doing really well" despite the new hikes from China. Earlier this week he postponed punishing levies on multiple trade partners for three months after trillions of dollars were wiped off global markets. The White House said that Trump remained "optimistic" about a deal with Beijing, and added that 15 other countries have offers "on the table" during his 90-day pause in their tariffs. - Tariff talks - Meanwhile, Taiwan's government on Saturday said it held first tariff discussions with the United States and expected more talks to build "strong and stable" trade ties. Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te on Friday said the island was on "the first negotiating list of the US government" as he looks to shield its exporters from a 32 percent tariff. Taiwan now faces a 10 percent tariff and Lai said talks would seek to strike a deal with Washington to bring that down to zero. Taiwan's Office of Trade Negotiations said Saturday that Taiwanese officials held a video conference the day prior with "relevant US officials" without identifying them. The two sides "exchanged views on Taiwan-US reciprocal tariffs, non-tariff trade barriers, and a number of other economic and trade issues including export controls", it added. Taiwan's trade surplus with the United States is the seventh highest of any country, reaching US$73.9 billion in 2024. Around 60 percent of its exports to the United States are information and communications technology products, including semiconductors. But chips were excluded from Trump's new tariffs.
Yahoo
12-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump defends policy after China hits US with 125% tariffs
President Donald Trump insisted Friday that his tariff policy was "doing really well" despite China hiking levies on US goods to 125 percent in the spiraling trade war between the world's two biggest economies. Investors dumped US government bonds, the dollar tumbled and stocks seesawed after Beijing's retaliation against Trump deepened concerns on already traumatized global markets. Trump sent financial markets into a tailspin by announcing sweeping import taxes on dozens of trade partners last week, only to abruptly roll them back to 10 percent on Wednesday for 90 days -- while raising levies on goods from China. "We are doing really well on our tariff policy," Trump said in a post on his Truth Social network after China announced its latest hike. "Very exciting for America, and the World!!! It is moving along quickly," he wrote. The White House said later that Trump remained "optimistic" about a deal with China, and added that 15 other countries have offers "on the table" during his 90-day pause in their tariffs. But Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt added that "the president made it very clear, when the United States is punched he will punch back harder." The US and Beijing have been trading salvos of increasingly harsh tariffs since last week. Chinese President Xi Jinping gave his first major comments on the tensions on Friday, with state media quoting him as saying his country was "not afraid." Xi also said the European Union and China should "jointly resist unilateral bullying practices" during talks with Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. - 'Numbers game' - Beijing announced after Xi's comments that new tariffs of 125 percent on US goods would take effect Saturday -- almost matching the staggering 145 percent level imposed on Chinese goods coming into America. A Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesperson said the United States bore full responsibility, deriding Trump's tariffs as a "numbers game" that "will become a joke." But China's finance ministry said tariffs would not go any higher in an acknowledgement that almost no imports are possible at the new level. Trump had reiterated on Thursday that he was looking to do a deal with Xi despite the mounting tensions. "He's been a friend of mine for a long period of time. I think that we'll end up working out something that's very good for both countries," he told reporters. But American officials have made it clear they expect Xi to reach out first. Pressure was growing on Trump, however, as markets continued to fret. As investors fled the dollar, which is typically considered a key haven currency, Trump attempted to squelch fears on Friday. "We're the currency of choice. We're always going to be... I think the dollar is tremendous," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, after the dollar plunged to its lowest level against the euro in more than three years. Meanwhile yields on crucial US government bonds, which are normally seen as a financial refuge, were up again Friday, indicating weaker demand as investors take fright. The White House said however that it had no evidence to support speculation by traders that China was offloading some of its vast holdings -- which would increase the cost of borrowing for the US government -- in retaliation. Wall Street stocks finished higher Friday, concluding a rollercoaster week on a positive note amid hopes that the market has absorbed the worst headlines about trade conflicts. Policymakers at the US Federal Reserve meanwhile warned of higher inflation and slower growth ahead due to Trump's tariff policy. - 'Countermeasures' - Economists warn that the disruption in trade between the tightly integrated US and Chinese economies will increase prices for consumers and could spark a global recession. Ipek Ozkardeskaya, an analyst at Swissquote bank, told AFP the tariff figures were "so high that they don't make sense anymore," but said China was "now ready to go as far as needed." The rest of the world is still calibrating its response. Trump on Thursday described the European Union -- which was originally hit with 20 percent tariffs by Trump -- as "very smart" for refraining from retaliatory levies. EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic will hold talks in Washington on Monday. But the 27-nation bloc's chief Ursula von der Leyen told the Financial Times it remained armed with a "wide range of countermeasures" including a possible hit on digital services that would strike US tech firms. dk/tgb/acb
Yahoo
06-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
World scrambles to temper Trump tariffs: White House
More than 50 countries have sought talks with President Donald Trump in a scramble to ease punishing tariffs on exports to the United States, the White House said Sunday, as trade partners braced for fallout. The Republican has remained defiant since unleashing the blitz of levies on stunned countries around the world Wednesday, insisting that his policies "will never change" even as markets went into a tailspin. But his staggered deadlines have left space for some countries to negotiate, even as he insisted he would stand firm and his administration warned against any retaliation. "More than 50 countries have reached out to the president to begin a negotiation," Kevin Hassett, head of the White House National Economic Council, told CNN on Sunday, citing the US Trade Representative. He said they were doing so "because they understand that they bear a lot of the tariffs," as the administration continues to insist that the duties would not lead to major price rises in the United States. "I don't think that you're going to see a big effect on the consumer in the US," he said. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also told NBC's Meet the Press that 50 countries had reached out. But as for whether Trump will negotiate with them, "I think that's a decision for President Trump," Bessent said. "At this moment he's created maximum leverage for himself... I think we're going to have to see what the countries offer, and whether it's believable," Bessent said. Other countries have been "bad actors for a long time, and it's not the kind of thing you can negotiate away in days or weeks," he claimed. Trump has long insisted that countries around the world that sell products to the United States are in fact ripping Americans off, and he sees tariffs as a means to right that wrong. But many economists have warned that tariffs are passed on to consumers and that they could see price rises at home. Meantime, the uncertainty over trade and manufacturing has helped fuel a days-long panic in global markets. bur-st/bbk
