Getting out when the going is good

GAA/Jack O'Connor: After 15 years with Kerry teams and 12 All-Ireland wins, it's time for a break. Tom Humphries reports

For Jack O'Connor the end of the road was coming for a while after a difficult and tiring championship season this summer. O'Connor spoke to county chairman Seán Walsh two weeks ago and indicated the nature of his thinking, but told Walsh he wanted to speak with the rest of the Kerry management team before making a final decision.

That meeting took place on Friday night in Nick's restaurant in Killorglin and included, as all Kerry management meetings have, Pat Flanagan, the team's physical trainer. Walsh was away in France for the weekend, and the joint decision wasn't relayed to him until last night's meeting in Tralee.

"I'm happy with the decision," O'Connor said last night. "I've given it a huge commitment, along with the rest of the management team, and we feel we've given it as much as we can. Life has to go on, we have families to look after and work to do, and we feel we've given it everything we have and we're happy with the contribution we've made.

"It's been a joint decision by us.

"From my point of view, we were always going to stay together or go together. We came in as a team and we leave as a team."

O'Connor's highly successful tenure has brought two All-Ireland titles and two league titles in three years. In the middle year of his time as manager Kerry also reached the All-Ireland final but were beaten by Tyrone.

There had been a feeling in Kerry that O'Connor might be tempted to stay another year by the idea of having a crack at Tyrone. In the end, though, the needs of family came first, but a return to management in the future isn't something he has ruled out.

"I wouldn't close the door on it at all," he said. "I'm 15 years on the go with different Kerry football teams though, and there have been 15 All-Ireland finals in that period (O'Connor has been on the winning side in 12) and that's a lot of miles on the clock."

In those 15 years few have been like the one just passed when Kerry rode the rollercoaster from June until September.

"This year was a tough year. Our mettle was well set for this year. In the middle of the year, around the Cork game, our own people even lost faith in us and that was a hard period.

"It took great togetherness from the whole unit, the team and the management, to right the ship in a few short weeks. We did that, but it took its toll, no doubt about it."

The decision to quit will come as no surprise to the players who have worked so closely with O'Connor.

"I've spoken to a lot of the players over the last while. They knew we were considering our position. In fairness, they were asking that we stay on, but they understood the commitment involved and the personal issues involved. There is no point in having a management team that is only going along for the ride. You have to give the most to get anything out of this thing.

"After a winning All-Ireland there would be a temptation to live off the fat of the land for a few years. We didn't want to go that route.

"It mightn't be a bad thing to have a change of management. History has shown that management teams that stay on too long leave a huge void after them. If you stay too long it's very difficult for somebody to resurrect it after you.

"There's a lot of mileage left in this Kerry team, the average age is just around the 25, 26 mark. There are a lot of players just hitting their peaks and the structures are there, so Kerry is in a healthy position.

"A new management would be in a better position than we were when we took over. There's no reason for not continuing to achieve."

As for Jack O'Connor. He is looking forward to resuming normal family life in his home on the edge of the ocean out at the western tip of Europe. He professes to have missed the company of his two teenage sons during the past few years and imagines he must have been hard to live with in the same period.

"I'd have a round journey of about a hundred miles to training, and some weeks that would be three times a week. Sometimes it would be five times a week. Somebody put a figure on the hours involved as about 35 to 40 hours a week, but I would say that if you're counting the hours you're in the wrong job.

"It's a business for being obsessive. You think about it all the time, and it's to the detriment of you family and friends.

"I would say every minute of my waking day was taken up thinking about football, except the few hours that I worked. Probably a fair few dreams at night as well.

"You have to be in it up to your oxter. You can't do it half-heartedly. Maybe there's a handier way, but I couldn't think of it, unfortunately."

Over the three years of management, his nomination of a favourite moment will surprise many.

"I spoke to Seán Walsh about it tonight. In 2004, when we came in, we got off to a bad start. We got beaten in a league game above in Longford. We beat Cork, and then we won a league game up in Parnell Park and it was the first time we had beaten Dublin away in the league in something like 18 years.

"It summed up Séamus Moynihan that night. He got a rough time from Conal Keaney that night in the first half, and in the second he went out and almost single-handedly he changed the game for us.

"You could feel the self-belief coming into the side after that. The leadership he showed at that particular time when the team needed it and we as a management needed it. That was a great moment."

For O'Connor that imprimatur from Moynihan was as special as the beating of Armagh this year, a feat which meant more because of a personal involvement too.

"After Darragh Ó Sé's experience against Armagh four years ago it was special to go up there and put up a display and win by eight points and for Darragh to be man of the match. It put a nice gloss on the season, looking back."

O'Connor is 46 years old next Wednesday. By the standards of a durable predecessor of his, one Mick O'Dwyer, he has many, many years to go and many, many, many more miles to drive.

"Yerra," he says, "we're different vintage. I don't think I'd be able for that line of thinking at all!"

Football has lost one of its smartest and most decent characters.