LAST UPDATE | 7 Nov 2022

SOMEDAY SOON, STEFAN Okunbor hopes to catch a break and to finally get the opportunity to show what he’s truly capable of.

The 24-year-old Kerry defender reckons he spent two-thirds of his three-season spell in the AFL with Geelong between 2019 and 2021 on the club’s treatment table.

You name the injury, he probably had it while contracted to the current AFL champions. And that ill fortune followed him back to Ireland because while his first season as a Kerry senior ended with an All-Ireland medal in July, he didn’t get to experience a single minute of National League or Championship action.

Currently he is recovering from shoulder surgery and, touch wood, that will be the end of his run of misfortune.

It has been a frustrating time for the 2018 Munster U20 championship winner but in adversity there was also opportunity.

“I took every opportunity I could in terms of off the field progression when I was out there in Australia,” explained biomedical engineering student Okunbor, who will participate in the Plant for the Planet Games in Kenya later this month.

“There were plenty of other hours in the day, aside from football, and maybe I had more than others because I was injured for a lot of it. I had to try to occupy myself outside of the football space.

“I did a business diploma, I did a higher advanced business management diploma over the course of two years and I did work experience and took as many opportunities as I could. I was in a civil engineering firm for about a month, I was in a dental clinic for two weeks, I went into a surgical theatre for another two or three weeks.”

Okunbor genuinely means it then when he says that he has no regrets about his time in Australia which also yielded 17 VFL appearances.

Ask him was he ever close to making his senior debut with the Cats and he shakes his head though.

“To be honest, looking back, I probably was never close in that when you go over as an Irish player, you’re so far behind everyone else in terms of skill and progression and any injury sets you back so far because you need to spend an extra hour on the football field, after they finish, just learning the nuances of their game,” he said.

“And when you can’t do that, it just puts you at the very bottom of the barrel. I guess I was constantly trying to get out of that bottom of the barrel in retrospect.”

Now back in green and gold again, the feeling is that if anyone can get the best out of Okunbor, it’s Jack O’Connor. O’Connor was over the Kerry U20s in 2018 when the six-foot-three defender enjoyed his standout season as an underage player, lording it at full-back.

O’Connor returned to the senior role with Kerry around the same time Okunbor came back from Australia last autumn. The option of sitting tight and not coming into the Kerry setup until the 2023 season was put on the table though Okunbor didn’t fancy that.

“I thought if I don’t come back this year then life could just grow legs and run away from you,” said Okunbor who did feature briefly for the Kingdom seniors in the McGrath Cup. “So I just tried to tackle this year.”

Kerry supporters, mindful of Tommy Walsh’s initial struggles when he left the AFL and came home, will surely give Okunbor the time he needs to realise his potential.

The player himself feels the year will stand to him, even if he didn’t feature, pointing to the influence of coach Paddy Tally in particular.

“I think Paddy has been huge in terms of everyone’s learning,” he said. “He’s really brought everyone together down in the backs. You’re nearly playing as a defender for him, just not to let him down. That makes a huge, huge difference. Yeah, for me personally I’ve learned so much over the course of the last year. Even though I didn’t really manage to get much game time, it’s been massive for my learning in terms of transitioning back. So I’ll try to apply all that learning next year.”

Unfortunately he is not ready to go just yet though.

“I’m recovering from shoulder surgery,” he said. “I think my main focus is going to be getting my body right and getting back training with Kerry. McGrath Cup, National League, hopefully I’ll be back available.”

On the prospect of being the hunted in 2023, instead of the hunters, Okunbor assured that Kerry will be ready for the challenge.

“It’ll be a small bit different but I don’t think much will change in terms of our mentality,” he said. “Everyone has had a bit of time off now with the split season and they will have a nice trip to Dubai and Mauritius for the team holiday to really clear the heads before tackling next season so I think we’ll be fine.”

Stefan Okunbor has teamed up with Warriors for Humanity, Self Help Africa and the GPA for the Plant for the Planet Games which take place in Kenya from 19-27 November: https://www.idonate.ie/event/planttheplanet