The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
‘Credit is due to every club in East Kerry’ Damian Stack
East Kerry boss Jerry O’Sullivan was a most popular winner of the Personality of the Year award
YOU could feel the warmth in the room when Jerry O’Sullivan’s name was called out and he walked to the dais to accept his Personality of the year Award.
This is one popular guy. Sure why wouldn’t he be, says you, didn’t he lead East Kerry to their first County Championship title in twenty years and wasn’t this an East Kerry crowd? Well, yes, but even had East Kerry lost that final – and in hindsight that was never likely to happen – the Firies man would still be well got.
It helps of course that he’s brilliant at what he does and it helps that he’s been brilliantly successful at senior and Under 21 level with East Kerry, but as we say, even so, O’Sullivan would be a popular guy regardless.
Still it was only right that he was honoured as the Personality of the Year in East Kerry as he helps to lead and define a new era twenty years on from East Kerry’s last period of dominance in the annual joust for the Bishop Moynihan Cup.
“Really in essence these things are brilliant, it’s great, it’s brilliant to have them, but as individual awards I kind of feel half embarrassed about them because realistically and I think I mentioned it in our few words inside it takes a team to win this and the reason why I won the East Kerry personality of the year is because the East Kerry team are after winning a county title,” he says with typical modesty.
“Okay I was the manager of the team, but the team that we had behind us deserve all the credit and all the players and everything else that went about it. If we lost they’d be looking to blame someone and I’d be in the firing line for that, but look it’s great that we won it.
“This award is as much theirs as its mine, but I’ll hang on to it and put it in the cabinet at home. It’s great to be honoured.”
The championship success itself is still fresh in the memory, just a couple of months in the rear view window. When we last spoke to O’Sullivan the adrenaline was pumping, the dressing room hopping, with players singing his name.
In the half an hour or forty five minutes after a result it’s hard to sum things up, but now with a bit of time to reflect, O’Sullivan has been able to take in the full significance of what was achieved on November 10.
“It’s been brilliant,” O’Sullivan says.
“I suppose the celebrations were short and sweet. We celebrated that night and we celebrated the following day and then we went around to the schools and we had our medal presentation there before Christmas so it was great to meet up with the lads again, but since Christmas the fellas are all gone back to their clubs and they’re preparing for championship again in 2020. It’s kind of back down to earth now again, the start of a new year.
“You know I went away for a couple of days holidays after it and it was only then that you’d realise what we’re after doing and what we’re after achieving. Twenty years is a long time, to win a championship you need a bit of luck, you need the stars to align for us and this year they did for us.
“We were blessed that we didn’t have any injuries apart from Dara Moynihan and Dan O’Brien and a few others, but we didn’t have any injuries throughout the championship so we had a clean bill of health going through, which was great for us and you need a bit of luck on the day.
“I think we got a bit better and we had that rub of the green, but look it’s unbelievable. It’ll mean nothing now, 2019 is over, we’re starting 2020 and it’ll be soon forgotten and it’ll only be in the archives that East Kerry won it in 2019.”
The future for East Kerry in the County Championship looks bright. They have a team that should be there or thereabouts for the forseeable future and the reason for that is clear according to O’Sullivan.
“It is I think and like I said it at our medal presentation that great credit is due to every club in East Kerry not just the fellas that were involved in the East Kerry senior team,” he says.
“Great credit is due to every club in East Kerry, because at underage level there’s a rivalry there that’s built up, everybody wants to beat each other, which is great and they all put in the best effort that they can.
“The teams put in an awful effort at underage level and that is after progressing for us on to senior level with the clubs involved in East Kerry.
“The rivalry that’s is there is great, maybe if that could be echoed in the South and in North Kerry, because there is plenty of good footballers in North Kerry.
“I’ve seen those guys outside in North Kerry championships and it’s just a matter of harnessing it, maybe a bit of organisation and you never know what might happen there.”
As for O’Sullivan’s future, will we see him on the sidelines again come County Championship time?
“Unless Johnny Brosnan and the boys come up to me and tell me they don’t want me any more!” he jokes.
“Yeah, look, we will, that’s the plan anyway at the moment, but again it won’t be until July that we’ll be getting together so from that point of view we’ll be entrusting the clubs, which we did this year and they always do, to ensure the players are right and they’re ready for their own intermediate and junior championship and when it comes to senior then those boys are going to put the shoulder to the wheel again.”
Looking at how East Kerry ended a twenty year famine and then after that Legion ended a forty three year famine, we do wonder whether or not the two might somehow be linked. Yes, of course, Legion weren’t involved with the East Kerry senior team, but perhaps they drew inspiration from the district side.
“It didn’t not help I suppose,” O’Sullivan says.
“The Crokes are a fabulous team, let’s put that there first of all, for the last twenty years East Kerry haven’t been involved, they’ve set a bench mark in Kerry as a club going forward to All Ireland finals, X amount of O’Donoghue Cups, X amount of county titles that they won.
“Okay we beat them this year, it’s hard for them to get the head up and come back and win a divisional championship. Legion and other teams probably saw that and capitalised on that and maybe they took something from the county final, the Crokes are a great organisation, they’ve great fellas behind them and they’ve great players.
“I’ve no doubt they’ll be in the shake-up again next year without a shadow of a doubt.”
That’s O’Sullivan for you, a proud man, but a modest man. A man willing to give credit where it’s due. He knows the Crokes are going nowhere. Let the battle recommence next autumn.
I went away for a couple of days holidays after it and it was only then that you’d realise what we were after doing