O’Connor not underestimating the threat of Tyrone

JACK O’Connor’s come a long way from the mid-noughties era where he infamously described Tyrone as “flash and nouveau riche and full of it” in his autobiography. Tell us what you really think, Jack!

We wouldn’t exactly say that O’Connor has mellowed out – he remains a flinty enough character – but he does seem to harbour a quite-possibly grudgingly held respect for Tyrone football. If he didn’t, would he have enlisted Paddy Tally when he was appointed for a third stint as Kerry manager ahead of the 2022 season?

Perhaps scars still linger from that epochal All-Ireland final defeat back in 2005, but he’s won more championship matches against Tyrone than he’s lost (it’s 2-1 in that respect), whatever about the lingering perception that Tyrone are something of a bogey team for the Kingdom.

And he’s certainly not underestimating the challenge posed by Tyrone this Saturday in a fifth ever All-Ireland SFC semi-final meeting of the two counties.

They destroyed Armagh in a devastating 15-minute spell in their recent quarter-final clash, but now the cat is out of the bag, O’Connor is mindful that this time it’s Kerry who are fancied to advance – not always a comfortable place to be.

“Look, I’d never underestimate Tyrone. I’ve good reason not to. If you look at some of the results they’ve had, there are not too many teams who go to Ballybofey and win. We’ve found that even in the league. It’s traditionally a very tough place to go. Donegal take you to Ballybofey for a reason, because they see it as a fortress. That would have done an awful lot for Tyrone’s confidence to go to Ballybofey and win.

“And any day you beat Dublin in Croke Park is a big day. They’ll be very confident and I’d say they’ll privately be delighted that there was a lot of noise over the Kerry-Armagh game. It’s almost like their win over Dublin has gone in under the radar. That’s good for them so we’ll have a lot of work to do.

“They have a lot of weapons. They have a serious weapon starting with the goalkeeper. A big mobile midfield and obviously some very sharp forwards and with a good defensive system, so obviously there isn’t too much more left out there. We are under no illusions. This is going to be a tougher game than Armagh in many ways.

“When I look back on the Armagh game, that game was kind of set up well for us in the sense that most people were writing us off and then it’s a bit easier to play without that level of expectation. They were talking Armagh up and maybe that was hard to deal with, I don’t know, I can’t get inside the minds of the Armagh people, but maybe that was tough for them to deal with.

“I would consider Tyrone very, very dangerous because there isn’t that much talk about them, there’s a lot of talk about our game with Armagh.”

Tyrone have already overcome Kerry twice in high-profile underage clashes this year. The U20s did the business in an All-Ireland semi-final encounter in Portlaoise, before the minors administered a repeat dose with a dramatic All-Ireland final win over the Kingdom last Sunday afternoon in Newbridge. O’Connor acknowledges that Tyrone have had the upper hand at underage level, but makes sure to throw in that it’s Kerry who have the better record at senior level in the last decade or so.

“Tyrone are getting an awful lot right with their structures up there and are having massive success at underage level, and that’s proved even this year, they’ve beaten us at minor, colleges and U20 level so they’re getting an awful lot right. They have a conveyor belt of young players coming through, no question about that, so they have to be really commended for that.

“They did have a big record over Kerry in the Noughties but over the last few meetings, I think we have won four of the last five meetings, we have managed to get the better of them at senior level. But it is worrying that they have such a stranglehold at underage level at the moment.”

Asked for his own take on Tyrone’s underage surge, he commented: “I have no idea, I’ve enough to be doing to try and concentrate on the areas I’m involved in at the moment. What I would say is they obviously have very good people involved in coaching up there. The schools seem to have got their act together in a big way and consistently they are competitive every year in the school system and that feeds into the 20s then and the minors. I think that’s where it’s at.

“They obviously have really good structures in the schools, really good people involved in coaching in the schools. I’m not saying they’re not good people involved in the schools down here, I’m not saying that. That’s what it comes down to, it comes down to the quality of the people involved in coaching. That to me is what it’s about.”