Mark O’Connor is Kerry’s top cat Down Under but will we ever see him in the green and gold again?
HE was, is and remains Kerry football’s King over the Water.
Not so much Jacobite pretender, rather the real deal. Out of a generation of Kerry minor footballers, he was up there amongst the best. Second only to David Clifford and in and around Seán O’Shea in the pecking order.
That’s the level of talent we’re talking about here and, what’s more, he was gifted in a position in which the Kingdom haven’t always necessarily been that well stocked in: centre-field.
A guaranteed, dead-cert future Kerry senior footballer, a two-year Kerry minor, the captain of the side and man-of-the-match in the second year, and the last we saw of him in green and gold was eight years ago.
It was the 2016 Munster Under 21 final in Austin Stack Park and Mark O’Connor lined out in the number nine shirt alongside fellow Dingle man Barry ‘Dan’ O’Sullivan.
O’Connor bagged a goal, Cork nabbed a late winner – Cian Dorgan with a brilliant sliced effort into the Horan’s end – and it was off to the land Down Under for the West Kerry man a couple of months later on a rookie contract.
A blow to Kerry football? You betcha. Don’t get us wrong, though, it was more of a wistful feeling out there amongst the Kerry football cognoscenti than anything remotely approaching begrudgery.
A little resentment towards the AFL for swooping in and cherry-picking a generational talent? Probably, yeah, but more so, much more so, people wished the guy well, wanted him to succeed. All the while hoping that he might find his way back to the Kingdom sooner rather than later.
Naturally the two things are in direct contradiction with each other, save for the hope that, perhaps, if he won a title (and he has done) that he might then be inclined to give Sam Maguire a rattle back home.
O’Connor has always kept that link with home, with Dingle, with Gaelic football. Would it be that much of a stretch to think he might, having gotten a taste for it in the club championships, have the hunger to go on an represent his county?
It really wouldn’t be. One was even left to hope that, maybe, his run with Dingle last autumn might be enough to convince him to stay on in the Kingdom and sign up with his former Kerry minor and Under 21 manager, Jack O’Connor.
As we now know, it didn’t play out that way. O’Connor made his way back to Geelong for pre-season where again he’ll be a key player for the Cats. Since then he’s reportedly signed a two year contract extension, taking him up to the end of the 2026 campaign.
It’s hard not to think that lessens the chances of
O’Connor ever lining out in green and gold. Sure, he’ll still only be thirty by the end of that contract, but twelve years in the AFL is a long time.
A potential Tadhg Kennelly-esque one-and-done season with the Kingdom might be the best case scenario. Kennelly, though, was three years younger in 2009 than O’Connor stands to be in 2027.
Impossible? Certainly not as long as the body holds up and the desire is still there, and we do think the desire is there. The evident joy he takes in lining out for Dingle in the club and county championships is proof positive of that.
And born a Kerry man, there’s always going to be that desire there to don the green and gold (and it nearly happened in 2020 too, remember), something he was fairly straight up about when speaking to the Geelong
Advertiser last year upon making his 100th appearance for the club.
“I do have a strong connection back home,” he said. “All my family is there and it’s a tight-knit community and I still have some Gaelic aspirations there. Hopefully I can play until I am 34 and feeling good, that would be ideal, but it is just hard to know.”
It is hard to know and, let’s be clear here, O’Connor has no obligations to anybody save for himself. He’s living his life, making a home, friendships, connections, a career that would be the envy of many, so if he sees his future down there rather than up here that’s totally understandable.
One way or another Kerry football will move on without O’Connor. It has to, it has done. O’Connor’s namesake Diarmuid is ready to lead, another namesake Joe is coming on properly strong at just the right time, while his old buddy Barry ‘Dan’ looks like pushing for a place too.
It’s simply not the case that Kerry’s midfield is a barren wasteland with Jack Barry departed and David Moran retired. Could it be stronger? Probably yeah and, for sure, O’Connor (Mark that is) would probably command a starting place before long, but, you know, if wishes were horses and all that.
From Seán Wight to Tadhg Kennelly to Mark O’Connor it’s something Kerry football has grown accustomed to at this stage in the game, losing player to the land of Oz.
Just this week young Kilmoyley man Rob Monahan scored a goal on his debut in the Victorian Football League for the Carlton Reserves. O’Connor wasn’t the first and, as Monahan proves, won’t be the last.
The Jacobite restoration never happened, over the water is where the king remained, and neither might the O’Connor restoration in the Kingdom of Kerry.
And you know what? If it doesn’t that’s alright too. That’s life. The story of Ireland is an immigrant’s tale. There are plenty of other young Kerry men and women in Australia besides O’Connor.
More power to them, and more power to him.