O’Connor has more in tank
FROM Duracell bunny to a predatory cat, Diarmuid O’Connor has made quite the journey in some minds this summer.
It is not a route he intended to travel, but in a season where his form, much like his Mayo team, has enjoyed peaks and endured troughs, his end product has been the constant.
This is his third year at intercounty level and it has also been his most prolific in front of goal with the 3-5 he has registered already exceeding the 1-10 posted last term.
He also rounded off 2016 emulating his older sibling Cillian when he was named young player of the year in back-toback seasons.
And yet, he concedes that he could be doing better.
‘Inconsistent would probably be the big word, no more than the team performance, my year has been kind of up and down and it just hasn’t been as consistent as I would have liked,’ he admits.
‘Some games I’ve been inconsistent for whatever reason. I can’t put my finger on why.
‘It’s the same with a lot of players early on, no one would have put their hand up and said they played the best they can play.
‘I don’t think it has changed since. There are always bits that we can improve on,’ he adds.
Coming so far in such a short time, doesn’t offset his belief that he could contribute more.
Today will mark his 46th competitive appearance in a Mayo shirt and his 25th Championship outing, which are impressive numbers for a guy who celebrated his 22nd birthday at the start of the year.
And it is not that he has been serving his time, he has chalked up 5-22 from play in his Championship career, which is quite the number for a player with a reputation for clocking up the miles rather than over-working the scoreboard.
He set the bar ridiculously high in the process — in the 2016 Allianz League campaign, he was named man of the match in three successive games against Dublin, Donegal and Monaghan by supporters in polls conducted by the Mayo GAA Blog site.
Later that summer, he scorched Kildare for 1-5 in a third-round qualifier in one of the best individual displays of the year, but perhaps that kind of form invites pressure that can become a burden.
And then there was his match traffic — sandwiched between lighting up Mayo’s spring and summer last year, he also ignited bonfires when leading the Under 21s to an All-Ireland title.
In hindsight, perhaps it’s all catching up on him?
‘I don’t think so,’ he dismisses. ‘A lot of other players have been through the same thing as me and it hasn’t bothered them.
‘I can’t really use that as an excuse. Some days it’s just not your day and you don’t play as well as you hoped going into the game.
‘There is no point dwelling on it for too long, it’s not going to help you for the next game. You just take out whatever you can from the game.’
And that’s a bottom line worth lingering over. He has had much to take out of this season.
It was his goal that killed off Clare in a problematic third-round qualifier and he put over a point that was a gamechanger in a ferociously fought fourth-round clash with Cork.
Above all, in the semi-final replay against Kerry, Mayo’s dominance hadn’t been translated to the scoreboard until O’Connor ghosted inside the Kingdom’s full-back line in the 28th minute to flick Donal Vaughan’s centre to the net.
But there has been more to his game than those headline moments; his work ethic has hardly diminished which might explain why he has given everything to the degree that he has been benched in five of his last six games.
And it may also be a measure of Mayo’s evolution this summer that they are less reliant on the Ballintubber man’s engine to funnel ball, given the increased prominence of their kicking game.
Above all, it could also be argued that it has been the collective raising of the bar by Mayo that has ensured he is not grabbing the eye as he did 12 months ago.
That improvement has been facilitated by the most extraordinary route to the final since the advent of the qualifiers, with Mayo having to go to extra-time and replays twice to arrive here.
O’Connor believes that experience will stand to them on Sunday.
‘It has worked well in ways in that we don’t have time to think about anything else or overthink the games, we just go out and play.
‘When you come out of a tight battle, somewhere in the back of your head when a game is in the melting pot you have that confidence where you don’t think about it but it is probably is in there somewhere.’