Cox more than happy to play with ’common people
ON September 21, 2014 Conor Cox found an online stream and settled down to watch Kerry take on Donegal in the All-Ireland Senior Football Final. Six months earlier Cox had good grounds to imagine himself being part of the big Croke Park jamboree - if not marching behind the Artane Band at 3.27pm that afternoon, at least taking his place in the bucket seats along with the rest of the Kerry substitutes.
Fast forward those six months and Cox was half a world away. Literally. The Listowel man - then just 21 years old - was in San Francisco, and given the time difference it was about 7am that Sunday when Cox booted up the laptop and tuned in. Had he tried he probably could have found an Irish pub showing the game, but Cox opted to stay home to watch the game.
Having been part of the Kerry squad earlier that year, before injury and then his decision to spend the summer in America took him away from the scene, it might have been that Cox preferred to keep the curtains closed that day and watch to see if his county - and his friends - would deliver a 37th All-Ireland title to the Kingdom.
Not a bit of it. For Cox, every day - every game, whether he’s playing in it or not - is a school day.
“The one thing I can’t do is…I hate watching inter-county games with people around. I like to keep in my own circle watching them and zone in and try to learn from them I suppose. I try to pick up parts from them that I can use to improve my own game,” he says.
“Even during lock-down I probably watched a lot of games but I definitely watched the two All-Ireland finals (from 2019), the draw and the replay, to look at them and try to pick up bits from them to develop my own game. You see the likes of Dean Rock and Paul Geaney and these guys, and the conversion rate is always so high with them. They’re not kicking wides so it’s good to study that and try to learn from it.
“I personally find video analysis good to pick things from other players that I think I could do to create a small bit more space and small things like that. I’d be taking notes on the conversion rate that certain forwards have and look at the likes of Paul Geaney, David Clifford, Conor McManus, Con O’Callaghan, their conversion rate is always so high. I think that’s so important. Most inter-county games are won by a point or two so every wide you kick it could really cost you.”
And the result, with Kerry edging Donegal to win the county’s first All-Ireland title since 2009?
“It was great to see the lads win that final. I would have been friends with them anyway so it was great to see them win it. And I certainly don’t have any regrets about it because I made my decision back in May, I think it was, and definitely I wouldn’t be looking back in anger or anything like that.”
AKerry minor in 2010 (albeit making one substitute appearance against Tipperary), Cox made the Under-21 squads in 2012 and 2013, and was part of the Kerry Junior team that won the All-Ireland title in 2012. It all amounted to a senior call-up in 2013 when Eamonn Fitzmaurice moved up from the Under-21 managerial job to replace Jack O’Connor as senior boss. Cox got his first taste of senior inter-county football in that year’s National League, and while Championship action eluded him that summer, he seemed well placed to push on in 2014. League starts against Derry and Mayo, scoring 0-7 and 0-4 respectively, but an injury curtailed the rest of his League, and then - inexplicably from the outside looking in - he headed to the west coast of America in early June.
“I would have played three games in the National League in 2014 and I would have thought I did reasonably well, and then I picked up an injury and would have missed two league games and then I saw no more game time,” he recalls. “I suppose as a young fella growing up I would have been lucky enough that my mom would have taken us to America quite a bit so I would have always thought I’d love to put down a summer over here. Being 21 at the time in 2014 I just said to myself it was a good time to do a bit of travelling and go over and see a bit of America because it was always in my mind to do it. I said I’d do it and to be honest I don’t have any regrets about going travelling because I think for young people in general it’s good to see other parts of the world and get a bit of experience out there.”
Not long after watching from afar Kerry win the All-Ireland, Cox was back in Ireland - back to finish his studies in Cork. If UCC provided him with a degree in Social Science and a subsequent Masters in Information Systems for Business Performance, Cox was also the consummate student of the game. And like so many footballers who’ve passed through UCC - Kerry lads included - Cox fell under the spell of the maestro. Billy Morgan.
“I learned a lot from Billy Morgan. He has a way about him that lets the players, I suppose, dictate it, and he kind of comes in behind it. It was great to play under Billy in fairness, and I have learned a lot from him. I’m still in contact with him. I was only chatting him a few weeks back. If I have any