Football is about more than winning for Jack O'Connor

Click here to listen to the interview with Kerry senior football team manager Jack O'Connor.

By John Harrington

Legendary NFL coach Vince Lombardi once famously said, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”

Kerry football manager, Jack O’Connor isn’t inclined to agree. For him, it also matters that sport is a spectacle.

That’s why he got such a kick out of Kerry’s high-octane match against Armagh last Sunday. Neither team triumphed, but football was very much the winner.

Kerry play Donegal in the Allianz Football League Division 1 Final on Sunday and O’Connor’s anticipation of the game is heightened by the fact that, regardless of the result, it’s likely to be another free-flowing game of football.

Almost every match these days is thanks to the transformative impact of the FRC rule changes which O’Connor believes have been the salvation of a game he had grown increasingly disillusioned about.

“We played a quarter-final against Derry in 2024 and we won the game and it was a great game to win, but it was a dog of a game,” O’Connor told GAA.ie

“It was tough going to watch it. It was tough going to be involved in it.

“It's not all about winning. You get more of a kick out of a game where there's good football being played, there's good pace and honesty in the game, and great scores.

“And I feel that game on Sunday against Armagh was as good an hour's entertainment as you're ever going to get in an amateur game.

“A couple of years ago, I remember standing on the sideline one evening. This was back in '24 before the new rules and I remember saying to one of the selectors who was standing beside me, "the game is screwed here".

“We were trying to unpick a blanket defence type of scenario. And I just said to myself, 'Lord Jesus, this isn't what the game was supposed to turn into at all'. The game had become ultra-defensive.

“Inside forwards were becoming extinct. They were being dragged down the field and half-backs were doing a lot of the scoring and stuff like that. You know, the game was turned on its head.

“I think the real telling point was the '24 final where one point was scored by the six starting inside forwards. Sure, that's not the way the game should be at all. I mean, the inside forward should be doing the bulk of your scoring but they were spending half their time defending.

“The game was gone and was going backwards at a rate of knots. The boys (Football Review Committee) deserve massive credit.

“Now, there was a couple of things I didn't agree with, like the 50 metre penalty for not handing the ball back respectfully and stuff like that, I wasn't overly gone on that one.

“But at least now I think in the last while referees have cottoned on to lads who are accidentally holding it up and lads who are doing it deliberately.

“I think that's where it needs to go, referees need to interpret that properly. But, by and large, you'd be only nitpicking or if you're finding any fault with the rules.

“They've transformed the game into something very fluid, very offensive orientated and very entertaining. And, sure it's great to be part of that.”

The game has undergone a lot of changes since O’Connor won the first of his five All-Ireland titles as Kerry senior team manager in 2004 so it’s a testament to his ability to move with the times that he won his fifth 21 years later.

He surrounds himself with good people and sees the benefit in bringing fresh voices into the group as evidenced by the recruitment of Kieran Donaghy this year, but he knows too that ultimately the buck has to stop with him.

“Well, it's such a subtle balance,” he says. “You know, you obviously have to show leadership, but you also have to listen to other people and give them time to formulate or express their opinion.

“Ultimately, I have to collate that information and then come to a decision, because there has to be one decision maker. And we don't always get it right.

“I’m not sure we got everything right on Sunday. Players made a few mistakes on the pitch and I think we might have made one or two mistakes maybe on the sideline. So, you move on. You try to learn from it. You don't pretend you're right all the time.

“You learn from it and you try to do better next time. So, that's the way we operate. There's no egos in the camp

“It's important to have a healthy environment where you have good debates and people express their opinion and so on, and then come to a consensus.

“That's good, that's good. It keeps everybody on their toes. I think we have a fairly democratic enough management and coaching group. We do communicate a lot. We do regular meetings before training and then on the off-days online and stuff.

"It's very, very important that everyone is singing off the same hymn-sheet, because where you have problems is if people are kind of contradicting each other with the message that you're giving players. Once you've open lines of communication, I think you're fine.”

O’Connor views every day as a learning day and for him the League is “a simulator for the championship”.

Last year he reckons they learned a lot from the experience of throwing away big leads in the League, especially against Dublin. This year he’s discovered he has a greater depth to his squad than he previously might have thought.

He’s adamant now that he feared at the outset of the campaign that Kerry might be relegation candidates given the number of players that were unavailable due to injury or club commitments.

And yet despite using 32 players they’ve played to a consistently high standard and young up and comers like Tomás Kennedy and Keith Evans have announced themselves as serious prospects for the championship campaign to come.

“The key to success is that you have to keep replenishing the pool and we've tried a lot of lads this year and, by and large, everyone acquitted themselves very well,” says O’Connor.

“That's what you need. If you get complacent and think that the team you had the year before will necessarily succeed the following year, then that's where you fall into that trap.

“We go on what we're seeing in front of us, you know. We go on form, we go on what we're seeing in training and how lads perform in the matches.

“So, you have to keep the pot boiling and keep as many players motivated and ready to play for as long as possible.”

He’s expecting a serious game of football in Sunday’s League Final against a Donegal team he describes as “a very tough proposition”.

But he’s confident too that he’ll get a performance from his own players given the body of work they’ve put together so far during the League.

It’s been very obvious by the way that men like Sean O’Shea, David Clifford and Joe O’Connor have applied themselves that they’re highly motivated to follow up last year’s All-Ireland success with more silverware this year.

“We tell them that as well, you know, that they have to drive the thing,” says O’Connor.

“We only kind of give them a bit of a steer here and there. But, you know, you must remember this team have had setbacks and some very bitter blows like losing the 23 Final, losing the '21 semi-final to Tyrone, Losing an agonising semi-final to Armagh in 24.

“So they've had a lot of blows and I think they've realised now that time doesn't wait for you. There's only a certain amount of years where you can achieve the big prizes. So I think that's what's driving them as much as anything.”

O’Connor is keenly aware that the sands of time are running out for him as well which is why he’s savoured this year’s League campaign so much and is looking forward to Sunday’s trip to Dublin.

“Look, I tell you now, at this hour of my life I appreciate every game,” he says.

“I remember being above in Ballyshannon looking around me this year and saying, ‘Jesus, this is some atmosphere up here and a great setting’.

“I'd never been there before. I just said to myself, ‘sure, I might not be here again, I'll enjoy this’.

“The same with Armagh on Sunday. I was really looking around me, taking it in and saying, 'this is great, now, this is a fantastic atmosphere here and great to be a part of it’.

“It's the same in Croke Park. Every time you go to Croke Park it's a privilege and a bonus and that's the way we're looking at it now.”