All change in Kerry as Cian O’Neill returns as coach under Jack O’Connor for 2025
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KERRY manager Jack O’Connor has gone back to the future and drafted in former coach Cian O’Neill to fire the Kingdom’s All-Ireland ambitions in 2025.
O’Neill finished his three-year term with the Galway footballers in the wake of their gut-wrenching All-Ireland final loss to Armagh but, as is his wont, hasn’t stayed idle for long.
He will return to the Kerry management ticket a decade after concluding a three-year coaching stint alongside manager Eamonn Fitzmaurice that delivered Sam Maguire in 2014. Before that he had coached Mayo to the 2012 All-Ireland final, where they lost to Donegal. History repeats itself as he now returns to the Kingdom after Galway's final defeat to another Ulster county.
O'Neill has been on the inter-county merry-go-round since 2006 when he joined Mickey Ned O'Sullivan and Limerick. Eighteen years on, across seven different counties, he helped deliver All-Ireland SHC success with Tipp in 2010 and Kerry four years later.
O’Neill returns as head coach which means a change in roles for Paddy Tally, who will become performance coach under O’Connor.
Despite their involvements at various stages with Kildare and Kerry, O’Connor and O’Neill have never worked in tandem. The manager was very keen for Tally to remain on board and alongside his coaching input, he will take on the sports psychologist role previously undertaken by Tony Griffin. Tally was considered a potential candidate to manage his own county once Fergal Logan and Brian Dooher stepped away in Tyrone, but has decided to remain for another season with Kerry. It is not envisaged he will have to travel south as frequently in 2025.
Two new selectors in former Kerry minor manager James Costello and former Kerry forward Aodán MacGearailt have also been added to O’Connor’s remodelled management team. Pa McCarthy from Currow, who served under Costello with the Kerry minors, also joins the senior set-up as assistant coach.
Confirmation of the new management team will stem a tsunami of rumours and speculation in the county over the past few weeks. Once Mike Quirke and Diarmuid Murphy, outgoing selectors, indicated their intention to step down, O’Connor began the process of constructing a new backroom team. It was more difficult than he could have envisaged, with several high profile GAA figures in the county passing up the opportunity to get involved. In that alone, there is a sobering takeaway for the county’s GAA executive.
Amid ongoing FRC discussions under Jim Gavin to make Gaelic football more attractive, O’Neill will be keen to fire a Kerry attack that failed to properly ignite in 2024. Inter-county managers met with Gavin’s committee for three hours on Thursday evening, and the group will present to Croke Park’s Central Council on Saturday.