Two decorated figures getting ready for sideline battle

By Micheal Clifford

The downside for those shackled to tradition is that it expects much, but credits little.

This Sunday’s All-Ireland final pitches two of the modern management colossuses against one another, but while Jim McGuinness and Jack O’Connor may have travelled similar journeys they come from very different places.

It is easily forgotten now but when McGuinness first expressed an interest in leading Donegal neither his face and, infamously on one occasion, plug for his power-point presentation did not fit.

In the end, a compelling stint in charge of the county under-21’s changed all that, and in the process he would dramatically transform the county’s fortunes.

It was not so much the official powers that presented an obstacle to O’Connor’s ambitions to lead Kerry, but rather the prejudice rooted in a value system where worth is measured in All-Ireland gold.

He was empty-handed on that front but, just like McGuinness would do almost a decade later, prove he had the aptitude for the job with a powerful CV at underage level.

Both have managed to do that rarest of things, make a mockery of the long-standing wisdom that you should never go back.

McGuinness has not only gone back, but has retraced the exact same steps he took first time around, securing promotion, winning back-to-back Ulsters and, just as in his second season, is back in the All-Ireland final.

O’Connor has gone to a place never travelled before, coming back twice with each of his three stints not only validated with All-Ireland success but having done so by completing four league and championship doubles. Having never failed to follow up a spring title without Sam, the fact that he is half-way there already may add to Donegal discomfort.

It is a remarkable record, yet, for all that it is McGuinness’ presence that looms larger over Sunday’s final.

In a way, that is a measure of where both counties are at. In the absence of a great past, Donegal’s instinct is to lean on the ability of a great manager, McGuiness’s messianic-like presence accentuated by the fact that he was on the playing fringes of the breakthrough 1992 team.

In contrast, O’Connor has to answer to tradition as much as serve it. In Kerry, of all counties, the borderline that separates the pat on the back and the kick in the backside is so obscure that sometimes there is no point squinting to search for it.

Perhaps, that was why after the quarter-final victory over Armagh that frustration boiled over, when he vented at the criticism which was unleashed after a mid-summer dip in form.

There was nothing new in any of that.

Famously, his great and late neighbour from Waterville, Mick O’Dywer, once reckoned that when you are in charge of Kerry, there are 31 and a half counties against you.

You might call that paranoia, but those that have walked the Kerry sideline might call it a pretty astute observation.

That is because tradition demands success and those who deliver it tend to be applauded but are rarely acclaimed.

It could be argued that Micko was the exception, but even he had to fight off a heave in the aftermath of losing the 1977 semi-final to Dublin.

But there is enough in O’Connor’s sustained service to Kerry to ensure when he does walk away - and Sunday is the final game of his current tenure - his legacy should be a revered one, just as McGuinness is certain to enjoy.

There is that sustainability element. He has proven Mark Twain’s theory that age is a matter of mind over matter when he became the oldest to ever win an All-Ireland in 2022, edging out, inevitably, Brian Cody by a couple of months.

Should he do so again at the age of 64 at a time when conventional wisdom stresses management is a young person’s game, he will stretch that record to a place where it is unlikely to be challenged for a long, long time.

He has survived that long because he never stopped delivering, most significantly in one of his down periods he led Kerry to back-to-back minor titles (which would kickstart five in a row) which now provides the backbone for the current senior team.

Look back, he has proven his smarts time and again, responding to the new Ulster way by bringing a toothier physical edge to Kerry in the noughties, the reinvention of Kieran Donaghy as a full-forward, the courage to import Paddy Tally, the beefing up of the middle eight this season by moving Graham O’Sullivan out of defence, he has always rolled the dice.

He usually gets to find a way.

You can count on two fingers his losing record to an opposite number in knock-out games; James McCartan’s steering of Down to a win in the 2010 All-Ireland quarter-final is one.

The other?

McGuinness, in 2012, also bettered him in that year’s quarter-final, offering O’Connor perhaps one final chance to balance a ledger that no matter what happens on Sunday, will in time read well.