Joe O'Connor savouring his second All-Ireland SFC triumph
Joe O'Connor of Kerry and Ciaran Moore of Donegal contest a high ball during the All-Ireland SFC final. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile
By Paul Keane
In the buildup to the All-Ireland SFC final, former Armagh star Aaron Kernan made an interesting observation about Kerry's Joe O'Connor.
"While the ACL is a really serious injury to pick up, I think it helped Joe O'Connor," said Kernan, reflecting on the injury suffered by the versatile Kerry midfielder in a club game in late 2022.
"You get to 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."
Midday on Monday, the day after Kerry's brilliant final win over Donegal, and O'Connor is standing next to the team bus, getting ready for the first leg of the long trip south and the homecoming after beating Donegal.
He is a happy looking man, still basking in the afterglow of a terrific All-Ireland performance, both individually and collectively. The number 10 was one of Kerry's best players in Sunday's 10-point win, laying down the terms of engagement with a powerful display around midfield and bursting through for a late goal that sealed a landmark win.
Kernan's comments were put to him, that all that time he got to focus on gaining more power, speed and mobility after the cruciate injury, which ruled him out of Kerry activity for all of 2023, probably paid off.
"I tried to flip it into a positive as much as I could," agreed O'Connor, referencing the serious knee injury. "Being able to train and to get into the best shape possible in your own routine was huge. When you're following a normal schedule it can be tough to work on things outside of that plan, so I just tried to flip it into a positive.
"As I said, the positive was that I had a year to work on my physique and work-ons, like my sprinting and stuff like that. I probably wouldn't have been able to do that if I'd been playing game after game.
"So I tried to do that with the S&Cs and the physios, just really went after those work-ons to come back in way better shape. I probably did come back in better shape. I was more mobile. It certainly ended up that way."
That knee injury in 2022 came just weeks after O'Connor had captained his county to their 38th All-Ireland title.
He had been restricted to the role of impact sub though, coming on four times in the closing minutes of games throughout the 2022 Championship. O'Connor eventually lifted the cup jointly that season with Sean O'Shea.
Seán O'Shea, left, and Joe O'Connor lift the Sam Maguire Cup jointly in 2022. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
"It was a tricky enough year being captain and getting token minutes and getting probably five or six minutes off the bench here and there, it was just a weird enough position for me," said the Tralee man.
"But I always kind of knew what I wanted to do, I wasn't happy with that and I knew I wanted to break in. I just felt like I wouldn't stop until I was a starter."
O'Connor made it happen too, remarkably starting all 16 of Kerry's Championship games across the 2024 and 2025 seasons.
Donegal struggled to contain his dynamism and ultra intensity on Sunday. Two of his first-half catches helped set up scores for Man of the Match Gavin White and the excellent Paudie Clifford, laying down the terms of engagement.
He capped an excellent display with a fine goal in the closing moments, into the Hill 16 End.
"The management kind of asked me to play that role, to be physical and just to get those tackles in around the middle," said O'Connor. "Cian O'Neill came in as coach this year and kind of went after my attacking game and tried to really test me that way and try to make me a better player, which helped me a lot with my confidence.
"I actually was getting a good few goal chances and I knew I had to work on it because I even remember the Tyrone game, ballooning them over the bar and stuff, so I actually worked on it for the last few weeks and was chatting a good bit to the goalkeepers and stuff.
"So when the chance came there this time, I just had a pop. It was a class feeling, into the Hill, and just the way the game was probably over at that stage as well. It was very special and the crowd was lifting so it was a class feeling."
O'Connor, in his mid-20s and in his prime, will chase more All-Ireland gains in the coming seasons.
"There's probably an expectation down in Kerry that you should be winning plenty of them," he acknowledged. "But we know that's not the case, that it's not that simple. You're never entitled to them. We just really appreciate them, to be honest. We saw what happened after 2022, in 2023 and 2024. It's so hard to win them and that's what makes each one so special."
