DAVID O’CONNOR should be gearing up for his league debut with new club Limerick this Friday night, but when we chat it’s immediately noticeable that his right hand is in a cast.
“I got my finger caught in someone’s bib in training — it’s such a stupid thing,” he explains before revealing that the digit is broken. “They’re saying six weeks but I’m hoping to be back quicker than that.
“I was starting to feel fit and strong and I was really looking forward to next week, then obviously I ended up doing this.”
The 25-year-old has had more than his fair share of bad luck in recent years. Like so many young Irish footballers, O’Connor was offered his first chance of senior football during a sports scholarship at UCD.
He would make over 100 league appearances for the Students while completely an Arts Degree and a Masters in Geography, before accepting an offer to join Trevor Croly’s Shamrock Rovers in 2014.
However, in his very first Premier Division game for the Hoops the defender ruptured ankle ligaments — putting him out of action for a large part of the year. The following season saw O’Connor dogged by persistent hamstring injuries and he found regular first-team opportunities hard to come by under Pat Fenlon.
After initially taking over on a temporary basis, Stephen Bradley was handed the Rovers job permanently in December and he has since gone about putting his own stamp on the squad with no less than 12 new arrivals.
Departures were necessary and O’Connor found himself surplus to requirements.
“I was at Shamrock Rovers for three years and during that time I had three different managers,” he says. “Players came and went over that time and there was a lot of instability.
“I was a little bit unlucky with injuries. I didn’t have the rub of the green and with the changes of manager it didn’t work out. But that’s football and I’m not the only one that it has happened to.
“With Stephen coming in, he wanted to bring in his own players to the set-up, which is totally understandable for a new manager.
As part of that process, he cleared out a lot of players that were there last season and I was one.
“I’m just happy to get a fresh start. I didn’t get to kick on as much as I would’ve hoped at Rovers, but I’m fully-confident that I’ll be able to get 30-35 games under my belt and become the player I knew I could be a couple of years ago.
“I’m not feeling sorry for myself. I’ve put the head down and I’m working hard in the new set-up to crack on.”
Last season’s runaway First Division champions Limerick were interested in acquiring the Meath man and, knowing manager Martin Russell well from their time at UCD, it was an easy decision to make.
“Having Martin as a manager was probably the factor that swayed my decision and the reason I went down to Limerick,” he adds.
“I enjoyed the type of football he played and the philosophy he has of the game. He likes you to get the ball down and try to play it.
With the success that Limerick had last year, I knew it was a confident group that were on the up.”
At 25, O’Connor remains determined to put all his efforts into succeeding as a full-time footballer but he has thought about the importance of planning for the future too.
On top of the Masters Degree, the centre-half is one month away from completing an online sports management degree run through the PFAI.
He may not know exactly what he wants to do when his career eventually comes to an end or he isn’t earning enough from football to support himself, but he’ll have a couple of options when that day comes.
“Unfortunately for many players in the league it’s not a full-time living and that’s just the reality of it,” he says. “Maybe it’s doable for a couple of years but you really need to be thinking long-term to either juggle a career with football or have something lined up for after.
“It has started to gradually improve over the last couple of years but players need to have something to fall back on.”
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