Masterful magician O'Connor searching for latest trick

One of the most untapped resources in the All-Ireland football championship is knockout matches involving the last two Sam Maguire champions.

Kerry's clash with Armagh on Saturday is a rarity; it’s just the fifth time in the last 20 years that the two sides who last secured a haul of Celtic Crosses meet with the season on the line.

A lot of that, of course, owed to Dublin’s dominance under Jim Gavin - although their fans may argue that their B team may have been their best challengers anyway, but even outside those years, the stars didn’t align for such blockbuster clashes.

Kerry have been involved in three of those four previous tussles, losing to Dublin in the 2015 final and to the same opposition in the 2016 semi-final, although they did take apart Tyrone in a 2023 quarter-final a few hours before this weekend’s opponents lost their third penalty shootout in a year. Surely it couldn’t happen a fourth time to the orangemen? (Narrator: It did).

The only time Kerry weren’t involved in a meeting of the two previous champions was in 2014 when Donegal and Dublin - also opponents this weekend - met in the All-Ireland semi-final with the Tír Chonaill County beating the side that apparently couldn’t be beaten.

Such prophecies were being bandied about Kerry at the start of this season too. The way they stripped Ulster for parts last year - taking out Armagh, Tyrone and Donegal en route to a 39th All-Ireland - suggested as much, but events in recent weeks, specifically a 10-point shellacking at the hands of Donegal, have likewise suggested vincibility.

Luckily for the Kingdom, in Jack O’Connor they have a manager capable not only of getting the wheels back on the track, but driving them smoothly to the preferred destination.

After the debacle against Donegal, and the extensive fall-out after the half-time melee, the road to 40 realistically begins today.

Kerry have already pulled up a chair in the last-chance saloon this season, but Kildare were never going to kick the legs from under it. Armagh certainly have much more lead in their boots, but these are the scenarios O’Connor has relished finding answers for time and time again - as the majority of his previous Sam Maguire successes allude to.

His first season in charge of the county seniors ended in the best possible fashion in 2004 in what was a mostly serene run.

There was a scare in the Munster final as Limerick, chasing a first provincial title in 108 years, came agonisingly close to a shock, only for Darragh Ó Sé to pluck a few long-range Eoin Keating frees out of the skies late on as the Treaty forced a replay, which they lost despite Stephen Kelly finding the net after 20 seconds.

Dublin and Derry lived with them for a half in the All-Ireland series, Mayo for 25 minutes in the final. Easy doing, for the most part.

It was the 2006 season where O’Connor first produced his patented magic trick - finding a way for his side to bounce back from a difficult situation.

The six-point Munster final replay loss to Cork pointed to a side with serious issues in attack, four of the starting six forwards replaced before the end raising eyebrows.

Kieran Donaghy wasn’t one of those replacements, still viewed as a midfielder at that point.

He had played in the centre 19 times by that Munster final, scoring a grand total of three points.

Kerry were banished to the qualifiers to face Longford and it was there where O’Connor made the switch that not only changed their season, but how the most famous footballing county of all played for a decade.

The 6’ 5" Donaghy was moved to a new position on the edge of the square and Kerry had three goals inside 16 minutes. The rest, as they say, is history with a marker laid down at Croke Park against Armagh before Cork and Mayo offered little resistance in the semi-final or final.

Kerry’s three pre-Donaghy championship games brought zero goals, the four after brought 11.

O'Connor's third All-Ireland in 2009, in the first year of his second term, brought the sort of disciplinary issues that should have railroaded them; Tomás Ó Sé and Colm Cooper sensationally dropped for breaking a drinks ban ahead of a qualifier clash with Antrim.

Ó Sé, in a later autobiography, spoke of the trust issues he had with O’Connor and felt he could have handled the fall-out from the unsanctioned pints better.

That their exclusion came a week after a one-point qualifier win over Sligo, where the Yeatsmen missed a penalty, pointed to a side waiting to be put out of their misery.

With Antrim level with 10 minutes remaining, and O’Connor forced to introduce the two black sheep to save the situation, the idea of Kerry being genuine All-Ireland contenders seemed laughable.

What happened next is hard to explain. Finding an unconvincing way past Antrim secured a quarter-final date with a fancied Dublin but they, as manager Pat Gilroy marvellously put it, turned into "startled earwigs" as Kerry won by 17 points - a mammoth margin in a pre-FRC era.

Meath got within four in the semi-final thanks to a late Cian Ward goal, and with Cork waiting in the final, there was only one outcome with boundaries established that the Rebels could snipe them in Munster, but not on the All-Ireland stage.

Serenity, mostly, again in 2022. O'Connor's side only lost one game all season – a round 7 league match to Tyrone when they had already secured their Division 1 final spot and the Red Hands came to Killarney under the threat of relegation.

And finally, of course, last year’s famed quarter-final against this weekend’s opponents on the way to O'Connor's fifth All-Ireland.

Meath hammered them in the group stages, Cavan gave them a fright late on in the preliminary quarter-final and Kieran McGeeney’s side would surely be too good, the Kerry pundits told us. Armagh led by five points early in the second half and all seemed to be going to plan. Kerry’s response would be 0-14 without reply as they began their conquest of the northern province.

For that magic trick, O'Connor took aim at his own.

"I saw somebody writing this morning that said the only Kerry player worthy of being called a Kerry player was David Clifford," O’Connor said after the Armagh match in response to an Irish Times article by Darragh Ó Sé.

Siege mentality was the weapon of choice for that 2025 success.

O’Connor has shown he can change the course of the season both in terms of tactical adjustments and mindset recalibrations.

What he has in store for Armagh remains to be seen, but if we’re guessing, the message to his players would be that they lost their focus when Donegal rolled into town. Vengeance took over following a Division 1 final where they were destroyed on the pitch and tempers were up after Michael Murphy escaped sanction for a strike on Dylan Casey.

As the sides embroiled in a bitter battle after the first-half hooter - Michael Burns' dismissed for a nasty strike on Ryan McHugh - some of the Kerry players looked like they were bouncing on pogo sticks with the adrenaline pumping. That such an outburst happened then could be a blessing.

"The modern game is for plotters. Jimmy (McGuinness) is the superior plotter. Jack O'Connor is out of his depth and his team appears to know that," GAA pundit Joe Brolly said after Donegal's win in May.

The evidence would suggest Jack O’Connor very much knows what he is doing.

Watch the Tailteann Cup semi-finals on Saturday, Down v Fermanagh from 2.45pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, with Wicklow v Offaly available on RTÉ News Channel and RTÉ Player from 4.55pm. Follow our live blog on all matches on RTÉ.ie/sport and RTÉ News app and listen to commentary on RTÉ Radio 1

Watch Clare v Dublin in the All-Ireland Hurling Championship quarter-finals on Saturday from 6.35pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player. Follow our live blog on RTÉ.ie/sport and RTÉ News app and listen to commentary on Saturday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1

Watch Dublin v Donegal in the All-Ireland Football Championship on Sunday from 12.50pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player. Follow our live blog on all matches on RTÉ.ie/sport and RTÉ News app

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