The man with the midas touch
Kerry coach Cian O’Neill Photo: ©INPHO/James Lawlor
The man with the midas touch will once again be on the Croke Park sideline for the biggest football ball game of the year on Sunday.
Cian O’Neill will be part of All-Ireland final day for an incredible ninth time, this time as coach with Jack O’Connor’s Kerry team for their clash against Donegal.
The Moorefield man’s CV is nothing short of jaw-dropping and it’s no coincidence that success follows him wherever he goes.
O’Neil’s first All-Ireland final day was as fitness coach with the Tipperary hurlers in 2009 when they lost to Kilkenny, the first of three finals between the counties and was O’Neill was involved with his first All-Ireland winners in 2010.
After that spell with the hurlers, he returned to football with Mayo in 2012 where they won a Connacht title and reached the All-Ireland final.
O’Neill then worked under Eamonn Fitzmaurice in Kerry and was coach as they won the All-Ireland title in 2014.
Unfortunately, his run of All-Ireland finals couldn't continue during his first, and to date only, term as intercounty senior manager with his native Kildare but he did get the team promoted from Division 3 to 1 and will be forever linked with the infamous “Newbridge or nowhere” win over Mayo in 2018.
After a year with Cork, in the county that he now calls home, O’Neill linked up with Padraig Joyce and Galway and three Connacht titles in row followed, plus appearances in the All-Ireland Senior Football Finals in 2022 and 2024.
He was tempted back to the Kingdom by Kerry manager O’Connor at the start of the season. The pairs' links with Moorefield mean they each other inside out so it’s been no surprise to see them working so well together.
O'Neill won't be the only Newbridge man involved in the biggest football day of the year with Sarsfields man, and another former Patrician student, Brendan Cawley set to referee the game.
