FOR JACK O’CONNOR the off-season movements had a clear meaning.
He watched his Kerry team finally end their frustrating championship losing streak at the hands of Dublin in last summer’s semi-final.
Yet the renewal of acquaintances next Sunday sees Dublin armed with different options.
Con O’Callaghan is free from injury troubles. Last September it was announced that Jack McCaffrey and Paul Mannion were back involved. Then in March came the stunning comeback of Stephen Cluxton.
When the personnel news travelled to the south-west, was the Kerry manager surprised?
“Well, what ever about surprised it was a signal of intent. These boys weren’t coming back for the craic. These boys were coming back to win an All-Ireland. The likes of Cluxton and those fellas don’t come back after winning eight All-Irelands just to go through motions and say ‘arra we’ll have another go, we’ll tip away from another year’.
“You come back to win another All-Ireland and separate themselves from the pack of the five Kerry boys that won eight and the slew of Dublin boys who have won eight already. They want to to stand out not just as the best team of all time, but also to be clearly among the best players of all time.
“Someone threw a stat at me that the lads who were missing last year had a combined total of 24 All-Ireland between them. That’s fair experience to be bringing back into the dressing room, isn’t it?
“And God only knows how many All-Stars, so it would appear from the outside that Dublin are throwing the kitchen sink at this.”
The proposition Dublin pose consumes O’Connor’s attention this week. If you had offered him a bit more time in the wake of the stern All-Ireland semi-final examination that Derry posed, he would have seized it.
“It’s all consuming all year round to be honest but it’s particularly intense this week. That was a ferociously intense game last week.
“But very enjoyable. I tell you, I’d rather be dealing with it than to be up the side of the mountain talking to my dog and regretting things we did and didn’t do last Sunday. It’s a good kind of tiredness, it’s a great feeling.
“There’s nothing better than two weeks leading up to a final in Kerry. The county comes alive, there’s just a great buzz, particularly that it’s Dublin, there’s great history between the two teams.
“We didn’t mind the two weeks break all along, it was ideal really, but I said it after last year, you possibly need an extra week leading into a final because there’s a lot of extra logistical stuff that’s involved. You’d love another week for breathing space.”
Kerry have already overcome challenges this summer. Their All-Ireland journey was thrown off course by the opening group stages loss to Mayo but he feels the team has responded impressively since then.
“I really felt myself from way back that the season, in many ways, was only really starting at the group stages of the championship. It took a bit more planning and of people keeping their nerves. We certainly felt that some of the teams we faced in the league were jumping out of their skin very early and that they’d be fair men if they kept that going the distance.
“You’d always have faith that we’d come good. I though the Cork game was a big game for us. Going up to Cork is never easy, they’ve improved significantly this year, as they proved after by beating Mayo.
“We felt that was a big win, believe it or not. We didn’t shoot the lights out but we got a significant improvement in our structure, defensively we were much better than we were against Mayo. I felt coming away from Cork that we were back in the hunt.”
