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

Conor Cox could never quite break into the top echelon of Kerry football, but the Listowel man has found his place at the apex of the Roscommon attack in his father’s native county. He spoke to Paul Brennan

questions or queries that I want help with to improve my own game I always give him a shout,” Cox says.

“It seemed from watching those games going back the years when Billy was involved, there was a hatred among the Kerry and Cork players during Kerry’s golden years, but I can assure you that even in team talks Billy would always refer to the times he played against that great Kerry team. And he said the one thing he’d have learned from playing them is that their attitude was that they never thought they were going to lose a match. That no matter how it was going there was always going to be a kick from Kerry, and that the Cork lads were so afraid of them because they knew that Kerry weren’t going to go down lightly if Cork were getting on top.

“There were plenty of team talks or half time talks were I’d have been involved with Billy where he would have related back to playing against those great Kerry teams and the respect that he would have for them. No more than myself, Billy would still think he is a student of the game and he wants to learn and improve. Listening to him talking so highly of a team that kept beating and beating him, and instead of hating them he respected him more for that.”

Cox’s time in UCC was, in the main, a successful one. He played in three Sigerson Cup finals in 2013, 2014 and 2015, winning the middle one against UUJ in the final.

Another year with the Kerry Juniors in 2015 delivered another All-Ireland title and medal, which was good enough to earn him a recall to the senior squad, but despite coming on against Dublin and then Roscommon in the first two rounds of the 2016 National League, it wasn’t quite happening for Cox and Kerry.

He didn’t know it at the time, but after coming on late in the 1-10 to 0-14 loss to Roscommon in early February, the next time he would play senior inter-county football it would be in the primrose and blue of the Rossies, instead of the green and gold of Kerry.

CONOR Cox’s mother, Anne, is from Moyvane - “my mother likes to remind me that’s where I got my football from” - and his father, Martin, is from Loughlynn, a small village in west Roscommon, close to the Galway border and closer still to the Mayo crowd. The two met in America, moved back to London for a while - Conor was born in Luton - and then moved back to Listowel where Conor and his two sisters grew up. Conor was 10 or 11 when his father moved back home to Loughlynn, and before and since Conor has been visiting aunts, uncles and cousins around Loughlynn on a regular basis, saying he was “no stranger to Roscommon ever before I started playing up there.”

As it became more evident through 2016 that his son was being deemed surplus to requirements with the Kerry team, Martin Cox began planting the notion in Conor’s head that, maybe, Roscommon would afford him inter-county career that Kerry couldn’t or wouldn’t. Though he would return to the Kerry Juniors again in 2017 and win his third All-Ireland medal at that grade (scoring 1-8 in the final against Meath), the idea of switching allegiance to Roscommon began to sit better with him.

“Dad might have been making a bit of noise all right for a year or so before I ever made the decision to go up,” he says. “I suppose your father and your family and friends would be constantly telling you that you deserve to be with Kerry, that you’re good enough for it, but I’d never really thought too much of it. I’d have said that’s just your family and friends sticking up for you.

“Dad would have been going to a lot of my games and he’d have a good football brain on him, so he couldn’t fathom how

I wasn’t getting a chance with Kerry. He kind of said to me ‘you’re too good a player not to give your career a chance with inter-county to see how far you can go and get the most you can out of your body with it. He was kind of saying to me from about 2016 to give Roscommon a go for a year, and if it works great, and if it doesn’t you won’t have to look back in ten years time and said ‘Oh I didn’t give it a go’. So I’m very thankful to my dad that he kept at me and at me about it

“I suppose as time went on and I thought I was developing my game even further and improving in the gym and watching and learning from other players, I said at the end of 2018 that I’d love to give it a go. I think Dad would probably have put my name around to certain people in Roscommon County Board and thankfully the call came from (manager) Anthony Cunningham. Anthony is a very knowledgeable guy who has done it all as a manager, albeit in hurling mostly. He just said did I want to come in for a few weeks and we’ll see how you get on if it’s something you’re interested in doing. To be honest I didn’t need too much time to think about it, I jumped at the opportunity and I’ve been really enjoying it since. I’ve made some great friends up there and looking forward to the future.

“Ever before I came up Roscommon were winning (a) Connacht Championship in 2017, making the All-Ireland quarter-final and taking Mayo to a replay, only a kick of a ball away from an All-Ireland semi-final. So ever before I came up I would have said to myself that I’ve a big job here to even get on this panel. I didn’t think back in 2016 it was something I’d have gone for, because I wasn’t getting a look with Kerry so I’m (thinking I’m) probably not good enough for inter-county, and you start to question yourself.”

Did he feel he deserved more of a chance with Kerry, even after he came back from America and got his toe in the door of the Kerry panel in 2016, especially when his form with Listowel Emmets, Feale Rangers and the Kerry Juniors (in 2015) had been so goog?

“It doesn’t work like that in Kerry. I don’t think a player thinks like that, because there are so many players of high quality out there so I don’t think someone can just decide ‘oh, I want to be playing for Kerry’. There’s so much more that goes with it, such as the hard work in the first place you need to put down to be even up to that standard just to get in to training with Kerry.

“When I came back in 2015 I was so busy with UCC in the Sigerson – we got to the final again that year – I would have thought I had a very good Sigerson year that year. I got an All Star for it, and with Listowel, too, I thought I was doing well, and with Feale Rangers I would have thought I was doing reasonably well, but I would never have thought that I deserved a shot with Kerry now because I’d done this or done that. If the call had come, great, it would have been a great honour and privilege to go back playing with Kerry.

“Looking back at that time, I was so busy with playing, I had all these games. Listowel were going very well at the time, UCC were going well, with Feale Rangers we had a very strong panel there too, I would have been so occupied with performing for those teams and doing a job for those different teams that it never really would have come into my mind that I wanted to be playing for Kerry. To be honest I just enjoy playing football and competitive football. I was lucky enough at the time that I had all that and that was enough on my mind to keep me focussed.

“I look back fondly on those (Junior) years and (Junior) teams, playing with some excellent players. I was lucky in that my club was going well at the time but any opportunity I got to play at county level I was always willing to try and grab with both hands because I take my football very seriously. The more competitive games you’re playing in the more enjoyable it’s going to be, so I look back fondly on all that. And it’s great to have those All-Ireland medals too because it’s not many people that have All-Ireland medals, and I’ve three of them. There were great players on those teams, like Jack Sherwood, Killian Spillane, Tadhg Morley, Gavin Crowley, who are all on the Kerry panel now – these guys are serious footballers.

“I won the All-Ireland with the Juniors in 2015 and I might have thought I’d done well enough with them, and I suppose the next stepping stone from the Juniors is the Seniors...As a player, especially in Kerry, you never really think, you’re never sure, that I deserve this or I deserve that because you see all the great players who have represented Kerry and what a privilege it is, so I would never have thought to myself that I deserved this or that based on my performances. It would just be such a privilege to represent Kerry…

“Look, it wasn’t to be and I’m just very happy to be up in Roscommon and representing them, because they’re a great group to be working with. I decided when I got the call from Anthony Cunningham to give Roscommon a go and thankfully I’m currently training with them.”

OF course, he’s more than just training with his new county. He is one of the focal points of an exciting forward unit within an exciting team Cunningham has put together since taking over from Kevin McStay. Roscommon have always had to play third best in Connacht behind Galway and Mayo, but they’ve always been able to beat both on any given day, and an average of one provincial title every five years in no mean record for a small county. By coincidence, Cox arrived just as Roscommon football was on the crest of a wave.

“When I first came up I never had an idea I was going to make the panel or make a team, I was just training with them,” he say. “Roscommon in 2017 had won Connacht and been within the kick of a ball of making that All-Ireland semi-final. Then in 2018 they made the Connacht final again and lost out to Galway, so going up I would never have thought this team is the third best in Connacht or anything like that. Roscommon have been there or thereabouts for the last number of years so I knew going into the dressing room that night below in Castlebar (for 2019 Connacht semi-final against Mayo) that we wouldn’t be too far away from getting a result. Externally it might have been a major shock for people that Roscommon went to Castlebar and won, but certainly behind the scenes going into that game we would have thought we’d a good chance of performing at a level that might leave us in a position to win the game.”

Win it they did, before heading to Salthill where they dethroned champions Galway on a day when Cox experienced first half the passion of the Roscommon people, when they invaded the pitch prematurely and had to retreat to the sidelines for those last few moments.

“It’s just the Roscommon way really. They’re just such positive people and really passionate about their football and want to see Roscommon doing well.

“I think the best way I can sum up the Roscommon people is that during the League we won our first game, and drew our second game against Tyrone when we probably should have won it. We lost a few near the end of the game because of ill discipline.

“After that game things were going downhill a bit for us and we didn’t perform in the next three League games, and you’d be expecting that even going out for your lunch that the daggers will be out here and people will be coming over and asking what’s wrong with us and why aren’t ye winning and playing like ye were the first few days out, but any Roscommon person you’d meet on the street they still would have been very optimistic toward the Championship, and they wouldn’t have been negative at all. Roscommon people are very passionate about their football and I was delighted to be a part of the team to bring back the Nestor Cup.“

He’s a Rossie now, in many respects, but he’s still a Kerry man, and an Emmets man, and he hasn’t forgotten who was there for him in his formative years.

“The more games you play, and the higher quality games you play the more experience you’re going to get, and then the more experience you get it’s inevitably going to lead on to developing your game and improving your game. I would have been lucky enough in the few years before I came up to Roscommon that I would have played under Noel Kennelly managing Listowel, and Johnny Mulvihill managing Feale Rangers.

“I would have formed good relationships with these guys and I’d still be in contact with them now about how I can improve and develop my game even further. Certainly Noel being a forward, he would have given me a lot of tips on how to gauge what shot is on and what shot isn’t on, and he’d have given me lots of examples. So I definitely try to work on that part of my game since I moved to Roscommon.

“Look, I’m no finished article yet, that’s for sure. There are lots of other things I need to work on as well, I think every player in the country has to work on different things. It’s good to have relationships with guys, the likes of Johnny and Noel, that you can bounce these things off and they’ll come back to you with a hat full of answers.

On the prospect of an inter-county Championship going ahead this year Cox says: “You’d be hopeful...that there will be Championship this year, in what format or form, that’s unknown to us yet. As a player you want to be playing games. As an inter-county player especially as you career is so short that the years go by very, very quickly so you just want your opportunity to represent your county at any opportunity.

On playing on empty or near-empty stadiums?

“There’s two sides to that coin. Certainly people in the stadium create the atmosphere and it’s a great buzz as a player when you get the roar of the crowd behind you. And you know that there are passionate people wanting your county to be successful, but myself, personally, the thing I like most about playing and the GAA is the competitiveness of it, and I suppose just the battle you’re having with your opponent. You want to come out on top in that battle, and that would be the main driving force for me for playing football.

“I would have been all for playing games behind closed doors. We train behind closed doors and we play challenge games with other counties behind closed doors and some of those games would be crackers. Other players might have other ideas on it, but my opinion is that I would be happy to play behind closed doors.

And the prospect of making the journey south in August and September to play club championship with Listowel Emmets?

“All my friends are from Listowel and my mom is down there too and it’s great to head down at the weekends to mom, but inevitably I will have to talk to Anthony Cunningham to see what he thinks because at the end of the day my priority is probably with Roscommon now at the minute.

“Last year before I came up here if I was to say I’d only go half-heartedly about it I don’t think things would have worked out well for me up here because of the level of talent in Roscommon. It’s definitely a conversation I’ll have to have with Anthony and see what he thinks, but certainly at the minute I’m still a Listowel Emmets player and I’m looking forward to representing them

again.”