And the top five I played under…

1 Páidí Ó Sé (Kerry) I will be accused of bias, of course, but this has little to do with the fact that he was my uncle and everything to do with his management skills. Ask any of the guys who played under him and they will tell you that there was no greater motivator. There are very few managers where you go out wanting to win for them as much as yourself. He was one. 2 Éamonn Fitzmaurice (Kerry) I could see the manager in him coming away down the track and when he came in under Jack O’Connor, we were just blown away by the quality of his work, not least in analysis. He is simply the most professional manager I have ever played under; his attention to detail unrivalled but he has some of Páidí’s passion to go with it too.

3 Mícheál Ó Sé (Gaeltacht)

Not all the best managers wear intercounty bibs, and Mícheál, who also had the status of being a Kerry All-Ireland winner, managed me right through the grades with Gaeltacht. He taught us so much, but nothing more important than to remind us nothing beats playing for your own. 4 Pat O’Shea (Kerry) It was no coincidence that I got my player of the year award in 2007 under Pat, as he gave me the licence to bomb forward at every available opportunity. He coached me and a lot of others, too, when I was a kid and he was just incredibly good. And, as we saw with Dr Crokes, he is still going strong and winning All-Irelands. 5 Jack O’Connor (Kerry) He broke the Kerry mould by proving that you did not have to be a playing great to be a managerial success. The great strength of Jack (pictured) was his game-intelligence, allied with the ability to analyse the opposition to the point that he could almost secondguess how they would react at any given moment during a match.