A long weekend that lasts forever

Interview with Kerry manager Jack O'Connor: He spends Friday night alone apart from the company of the dog and the cat. Those two and his thoughts.

Before it's dark he points the car towards Waterville golf links and, as is his habit on weekends like this, he plays a few holes. His eye isn't in but that's not the point. A couple of holes run along the Atlantic coast and the wind and the walk, the chatter of the birds and the pureness of the solitude nourish his thinking. He chips a few balls, practises a few putts. Bags it. Heads home.

Bridie and the boys have gone to Dublin early. The phone rings insistently and often but he doesn't answer it. Not, that is, until he recognises the number of Pat Flanagan. It's 10 o'clock on the Friday of All-Ireland weekend. Pat Flanagan is a deal more hyper than his friend Jack O'Connor. Way more jumpy. It amuses Jack. He heads to bed early.

Saturday morning and he feeds the cat and the dog and just takes off towards the biggest weekend of his life. It's 10:30. He feels good.

It's a long and winding road from the southern fingertip of Kerry all the way to Killarney but it's shortened by familiarity. Today he's voluntarily the slave of habit and the drive is good.

Habit. He stops off in Cahirciveen. Into Relish for the quick cup of coffee. Hardly a day of his life passes without him going in there. He thieves a quick, brave glance at the papers. Mick O'Dwyer writes a Saturday column and perhaps there'll be a benediction. No such luck. Micko's thoughts are on the pandemonium that has surrounded the dropping of Mike Frank Russell. "He's just trying to get my pulse going," says Jack to himself. He rolls on towards Killarney.

He likes to read the papers on a big match weekend. He tells the lads that they can take or leave the media, it's up to them. But he'll always have a peep, see what the mood is like; is there anything there he can use, any angle, any slant. It's like sniffing the air of a morning.

He ditches the car near the Gleneagle Hotel. The Kerry minors and seniors are having lunch together before travelling to Dublin. The minors have a sense of the privilege involved. There's a lovely atmosphere freighted with just a little tension and anticipation.

Paschal Sheehy of RTÉ is in the room and the cameras unobtrusively swallow the scene. So thinks Jack but he can see a few fellows getting edgy. Under the dispensation of Páidí Ó Sé, the Kerry footballers were an enclosed order with a double strong vow of silence to obey.

Dara Ó Cinnéide asks quietly as to what RTÉ are doing. "Relax," says Jack. "Enjoy yourself."

On the way out Paschal asks for a few words on camera. Jack speaks of how relaxed everyone is, how the work is done. Quiet and confident. The enemy of hype.

It's going well. On Thursday night after a few kicks in Fitzgerald Stadium, they came back to the Brehon Hotel just next door to the Gleneagle.

Nice words from Kerry Group, the team sponsors. Nice words to Kerry Group from the team. And then they repaired to a familiar little room upstairs. Nobody was working the following morning so they were comfortable putting an hour or so down in each other's company. They talked. Then Jack stuck on a video.

A few clips of Mayo, the opposition, at their best. The team talked about ways of stopping them playing their flowing game. By then, of course, the strategy was in place. Having watched Mayo's entire championship, Jack realised that very little high ball ever went into the Mayo forwards in games. Ergo very little would go in during training. This Mayo full-back line would be unaccustomed to aerial duelling. The plan was to bombard them with high early ball for the first 25 minutes and, if nothing shook loose, to revert to a flowing, linking game.

Jack had worked, with Paschal Sheehy's help, on another video. A few motivational clips. Pivotal moments of the summer, spliced together with a bit of music. Some stirring clips of Séamus Moynihan coming out with ball, Darragh Ó Sé catching one under the crossbar. Gooch doing his thing. Mike Frank picking some great scores. Music from Queen blasting away as Eoin Brosnan kicks the goal in the replay against Limerick. The goal that turned Kerry's summer.

There are images of the team meeting with President Mary McAleese early this summer in Limerick. Then a crescendo of images: Darragh Ó Sé skyscraping for ball, Darragh thundering through, Darragh flowing and finally his injury against Derry. The heart of the man. The debt he is owed. It hardly needed saying after that.

Jack spoke. Ó Cinnéide spoke. Eamon Fitz. Pat Flanagan. Moynihan. Tomás Ó Sé. Finally Johnny Culloty. Johnny has more All-Ireland finals under his belt than any human being has a right to. Eyes light up when he spills his wisdom. He is a man of perspective. They went away off home happy as larks.

Now they are back together again. On the train to Dublin. On the cusp of All-Ireland day. Jack sits with Pat Flanagan. Jack listening to Raidió na Gaeltachta on the headphones. Pat still buzzing.

Jack tunes into Pat somewhere along the way.

"Well Pat do you think we're ready?"

Pat, being a physical trainer and a perfectionist, is never quite happy.

"Well Pat look at it this way, on the physical level out of 10 what would you give us? Say, on speed and on stamina and on power. All these things.

Pat gives his answers. All sevens and eights. No 10 out of 10.

"Jesus Pat, when are we going to get a 10 out of 10?" "Next year, Jack."

Their voices drop to conspiracy level. Jack says to Pat that this, this is it. Even if something goes wrong from here on in they'll all have to keep the masks on. Upbeat and smiling all the way, that's the job of management.

In the way of things Paul Galvin, sitting on the other side of a seat, overhears. Fortunately he is impressed rather than alarmed. He relates the story to Eamon Fitz. The players are happy enough with masks.

Jack gazes down the carriage. He's noticed that the same lads sit together on journeys. A fair share of them lads have piseogs. They are hung up on the repetition of lucky acts. He listens. The Gaeltacht lads are speaking Irish to each other. The other lads' talk gets canted back to him in English.

Perfect.

Away

The final whistle. The best and most intense memory of the weekend is the final whistle and the overwhelming ecstasy of the whole thing.

"Lads jumping on your back, people down from the stand who you recognise, my two brothers making it onto the pitch, fellas I kicked ball with when I was very young. A great moment. Sheer happiness."

His two brothers, Mike, who he was in the pub business with, and Paddy, with whom he kicked around with for 10 years and who was the best footballer in the family, make it onto the pitch.

A man who works with him in Coláiste na Sceilge, a fella called Eamonn Fitzgerald, nearly strangles him with joy. Great, delirious, moments. Happiness and relief in one loose bundle.

On Saturday night the only moment of doubt snuck into his head when he slept. He had a dream of Ciarán McDonald sticking a goal on Fitzmaurice and setting Croke Park alight.

Now hours before the final, before most of the team have got to breakfast he goes for a walk through the grounds of the Crowne Plaza with Flanagan.

"Pat, the only thing that's wrong this morning is that we're too relaxed. I'm going to have to pick a fight with someone."

Tension duly arrives like room service. At breakfast Aoife, the physio, approaches with the news that Ó Cinnéide's back has stiffened up. She suggests it might be no harm to have someone else in mind for the frees, just he case he gets into difficulty.

The adrenalin starts pumping now.

"We decided to address it, head on. We couldn't leave Dara to go into the game with any doubts. I called the selectors together. Dara Ó Cinnéide has a bit of a problem we'll have to address . . ." Ó Cinnéide joined them. A tribunal of elders.

"We need an honest answer, Dara. You're either injured or not. You can't be half injured."

"I think I'm okay. I did a lot of work over the weekend. Think I'm okay."

Still though they needed to put it up to him. Needed something more emphatic. Sometimes a player can use an injury as a kind of subliminal crutch. If things go wrong word will be out that I wasn't right. They never doubted Ó Cinnéide's resolve but they made him say the words anyway. "I'm fine."

The team adjourns for a kickabout up in Whitehall Colmcilles' ground at the airport. A kickabout and a meeting, one of those round in a circle jobs. The ground is beside the airport. Planes are buzzing them and razzing them all the while. Jack has to shout. He comes back to the hotel hoarse before he has even got to Croke Park.

He doesn't know when he first heard of Declan Coyle but the relationship has been serendipitous from the start. Coyle worked as a psychologist with Down during the summer. Jack decided to give him a call one day and it so happened Coyle was in Cahirciveen for the first time in 30 years.

They had a cup of tea and they've been touching base occasionally ever since.

"Now and then we'd talk through a few things. He keeps me very relaxed, gives me a few ideas. I've found the guy a tremendous help. Before last weekend I'd only met him twice but he's very positive. Nothing heavy. Just talking about not letting the game happen to you. You happen to the game. Moynihan is an example he gives of a player who always imposes himself on a game. He talks about how to be focused and relaxed at the same time. How things don't have to be hyper. Relaxation is not indifference."

The night before the final Coyle came to the Crowne Plaza. Jack had a question.

"Suppose you had a team and you knew in your heart they were going to win a big game. Would you tell them that?"

"Yes."

"But it's such a risk."

"If you feel it and say it the right way it will be positive."

In the morning he had called the starting 15 and Russell and Moynihan to a room upstairs to go through the game plan once more. Now he gathers everyone for some quick last words.

"Look lads. I know we'll win this game. I never said that to a team in my life. I've never said it to ye. Ye know me well enough to know I don't bullshit ye but I know in my heart we'll win this game. Enjoy your game. Enjoy the whole thing. From now to the finish. Cut loose. Leave all your talents out there on the pitch."

Coyle told him once to always speak to the soul of the team, that most of what managers say to players doesn't register, only the passion and the demeanour seeps through and the odd address to the soul. Kerry's soul is scarred from the last three years of beatings and criticism, shrivelled from the accusation that the team lacks a soul.

He hopes the words find a home.

Minutes later. Two buses from the hotel. An escort of three weaving motorcycle cops more buzzed than anyone on the buses. Fifteen minutes and they are in the dressing-rooms. For any team a dressing-room is home.

This is all familiar. The players are at peace. Everyone has their own routine. The masseurs, the doctors, the physios, the players. Jack hangs out for a while, looks at the minor game and then goes looking to the man in charge of getting them onto the pitch in time. They are due on the field at 3:07. Twenty-three minutes is a long time.

"Would the world end if we were a few minutes late out?" "We'll see. We'll keep it all running." They cut three minutes off their waiting time. Mayo bang away for what seems like an age outside on the field.

He has words in players' ears. Fitzmaurice is under pressure. Marking McDonald in a final is pressure.

"I said to him that this was an opportunity, there was only one way this could go. He's been built up, you haven't been given a chance, this is the perfect scenario . . . If he kicks a point or does something spectacular, just hang in there. "

Declan O'Sullivan? Take one or two runs at Nallen early on checking him out.

And so on.

Quiet enough words in the dressing-room. Just 30 seconds. A few players offer the same. The calm doesn't explode until they huddle. Organised chaos. Everyone shouting at once. Pure passion. The feeling that the victory is in them.

He first saw Gooch play as a minor. He was coaching in Coláiste na Sceilge and Declan O' Sullivan was his star. O'Sullivan would go in for a session with the Kerry minors and Jack would ask afterwards about this Gooch.

"He's unmarkable," O'Sullivan would say.

When he saw Gooch he looked like a half-starved jockey. St Brendan's of Killarney were playing Coláiste na Sceilge in Portmagee. Heavy day and Brendan's were outclassed. The Gooch looked uninterested.

"I didn't know the steel he has in him. You see the steel in training. He punches above his weight. He's about 11st; he's put on a stone in the last year and a half. He's well able to look after himself. Fellas try to hit him but he can ride the tackle. I remember (Kieran) McGeeney coming at him in 2002 and he went with the tackle and just glided away."

On 25 minutes just as the aerial bombardment is due perhaps to stop it pays out the jackpot. Long ball. Gooch catches high, turns, shimmies, dummies and sidefoots to the corner.

Two days later when he gets home at last Jack will watch his sons out on the lawn in their Kerry jerseys trying to replicate the goal. They're good but they ain't Gooches.

There's been tougher days on the sideline. Early on when Alan Dillon got free of Aidan O'Mahony for a Mayo goal, Jack went to his selectors and wondered aloud.

"It's Aidan's first final. That might shake him. Should we switch him with Marc Ó Sé away out of the firing line."

Ó Sé of course had scored by then, a point that would please the Gooch. Downside was losing that sort of moment. They opted for safety and made the switch.

"I try to stay tuned in all the time but the Gooch goal, that was the first time all year that I let a couple of roars. I felt we were on the way. We had momentum. Had to put them away but that goal had everything. We knew it was all working."

At half-time he was hugely animated. He found their soul again. He spoke about 2002, fellas coming in and thinking Sam was in the back pocket. Fellas going out in the second half and thinking of their All Stars and showing off a bit.

"It's not going to happen to this team because if anyone starts to showboat and we'll have them off and sitting in the stands. Focus. If we score four or five points we'll win . . ."

And they went into the warm-up room and stood again in a circle with anxious stewards tapping the window for them to come out and play. They promise that afterwards they would stand here in a circle again with Sam between them.

It came to pass.

Sunday night. He takes pleasure in seeing the boys in their shirts and ties talking on television, expressing themselves. "Sometimes they can think that they are one-dimensional. It's good to see them enjoying talking."

He awoke on Monday morning almost before he'd gone to sleep. An hour of shut-eye. Tops. Went down at half past six to have breakfast. Met Ó Cinnéide having breakfast without having gone to bed at all.

Later he took a dander out a with Johnny Culloty. Stretched the legs to Herbert Park. They went and sat down beside the duck pond and it was a lovely warm feeling of relief and contentment which held them there, reminiscing on the year.

"Johnny has a great habit of keeping everything in proportion. That was special. He told me that it's all a one-week wonder, that everytime he himself played in an All-Ireland final, well, the next week he'd go out to Killarney, get out on a boat early in the morning and fish all day. He'd come in at nightfall. He'd do that for a week, all alone and by the time he'd finished the pandemonium would have died down."

Home

The train home. A couple of beers, a bit of banter. Seán O'Sullivan doing his Mick McCarthy and Brian Kerr impressions. A video of the match. Before they know it, Tralee. The birds are singing in the dawn before anyone sees a bed.

Tuesday night is different. Tuesday is special. Magical. A dreamtime.

He gets an hour's sleep at home and heads to Dingle. West Kerry isn'treally any further west than south Kerry but it's a world unto itself.

There are a few speeches in Dingle and then they hie it back to An Bóthar pub in the heart of Ó Cinnéide country.

There is a stage set up. Mike Daneen Ó Sé and Máire Begley are playing the accordion. Everyone is speaking Irish. There's a bit of a mist there in the air and the lights are coming through the mist, soft on the faces, glinting the cup, making something magical. Ó Cinnéide, half god-half sex symbol, stands up and makes a beautiful speech in Irish and then Marc Ó Sé grabs the accordion and squeezes a few tunes out.

And the magic is in the faces of the ancients. Jack sits there in the mist listening to just how much joy this brings, the beautiful traditions of the caid and the music and the language all side by side and everyone so easy with it all.

Old men with caps which don't shade the delight in their eyes. Hard, rugged faces beaten by the weather but the Irish flowing out of them.

"Ana chaid." "Ana thaispeantais" " An stíl! Rinne sibh do ndhícheal."

Style is important to them. The outpouring of emotion has a lot to do with that. It married the old traditional Kerry football to the modern stuff of pressurised defending and short hand-passing out of the back. They found a nice mixture.

Johnny Culloty said it again and again through the year.

"I was over-emphasising the defensive side of the game and Johnny would say: 'Jack it's important that we have a bit of style as well.' That's the joy of it."

He makes it to the Skellig Hotel in Dingle. Folds into a bed and sleeps the sleep of the dead.

Memories. An Bóthar. Stopping off to see his great friend Gerry Mahoney, who is an uncle of Liam Flaherty's. They met in London 20 years ago and have been tight ever since. They found time for a few taoscáns of brandy together amid the mayhem. Old friends and confidants.

And back in the Brehon on Monday. Séamus M and Gooch and Aidan O'Mahony and Kieran Cremin and Marc Ó Sé and everyone with a drink in their hand and all doing their Jack O'Connor impressions.

And he shushes them.

"Sober up now with the trash talking and answer me this. One question: How is The Gooch going to top this?" The Gooch who came on the scene at 19, who won an All Star at 19, who has played this year in a National League final and an All-Ireland, who was man of match in both those finals and was on the winning side in both of them. The Gooch who scored the goal of the year. He's 21. How, how is The Gooch going to motivate himself next year?

Silence.

The Gooch stops smiling.

"This is the greatest moment of my life." he says "I want more of this. More moments like this."

Jack O'Connor nods his head. His restless mind at ease for another while yet.