Talk of the aesthetics and the health of the game can come later. For now, when Sunday comes, Jack O’Connor is only concerned with one thing: winning.
The Kerry manager has always tried to be true to the values of the game, and insofar as is possible he tries to have his Kerry teams play ”the Kerry way”. But there are few more hard-nosed pragmatists than the Dromid man, and Sunday’s All-Ireland semi-final against Derry will, more likely than not, be a day for the blue collar over the white one.
“This game is all about winning. The way you play is irrelevant. That’s for other people to decide. The cold, hard facts of coaching are you try to get the maximum out of the bunch of players you have. That’s as much as I’d say about it.”
That was O’Connor’s answer when coaxed on what he thought Derry’s style of play is, and would be, when the All-Ireland champions meet the Ulster champions for a place in the All-Ireland final.
“Every set of coaches sets up to get the maximum out of the players they have and Derry are no different,” O’Connor said.
“Every county has a different style, but it’s not for me to be making any comments on the way they play. That’s for other outside observers. It doesn’t even come into it.”
On the broader conversation about the state of health – or malaise – that Gaelic football is currently struggling with, the Kerry manager was phlegmatic. January rather than July might be a better month for that conversation.
“Of course, it’s defensive football, it’s not for the purist, but, look, when you’re stuck in the middle of it, this is all about winning,” O’Connor said.
“We might all have comments or opinions on it during the winter when you switch off a bit, but when you’re stuck in the middle of it, it is all about winning. It’s about getting over the line. You’re not worried about the boys up in the stand whether they’re tuned in or tuned out.”
Suffice to say, the Kerry boss will bite your hand off to come out on the right side of a dour arm-wrestle than to preside over the Kingdom losing another “classic”.
“All I’d say is that we’re not expecting a classic or anything like that, because the way Derry have set up all year I couldn’t see it being an open end-to-end game or anything like that,” O’Connor said.
“I’ve been involved in plenty of classics down through the years, but they pale into insignificance if you don’t get over the line. Like the ‘05 final, one of the great finals, lost narrowly [to Tyrone], the ‘11 final, lost by a point [to Dublin], more or less the last kick of the game.
“You can have all the classics you like, but from a coaching and a management point of view, and from the group inside, it is about getting over the line, and whatever way you do that it doesn’t overly bother you to be honest.”
As for the specific challenge of Derry – a county Kerry hasn’t played in Championship football since 2004 (O’Connor’s first year as Kerry manager, as it happens) on Sunday, O’Connor is preaching patience above all else.
[ Derry advance to semi-final after slow-motion victory at Cork’s expenseOpens in new window ]
“I just think we have to think our way through the game. We have to be really patient, we have to be efficient,” said. [Derry] are a team that pride themselves on their tackling and their counter-attacking and we’re going to have to be good defensively, because they’re well capable of working scores.
“I think we’re going to have to be very patient. The crowd, the Kerry supporters, are going to have to be patient, because the last thing you [want to] do is be cavalier with the ball and just be giving it back to the opposition and you might not see it again for a few minutes.
“We’re approaching it in a very serious way in the sense that we’re expecting a huge battle here, because all the evidence would point to that Derry are better than Tyrone [who Kerry beat in the quarter-final],” O’Connor said.
“They’ve proved that by winning Ulster the last couple of years. They’ve also beaten Tyrone pretty comprehensively the last two times they met them.
“They’re obviously a very tough nut to crack. They’re very rigid and systematic defensively. They’ve proved to be a very hard team to break down.”
We should expect more prose than poetry, then, on Sunday. The Kerry manager will take it any which way as long as the punchline is a Kerry win.
