The Big Interview - Marc Ó Sé

By Cian O'Connell

The 23rd series of TG4's Laochra Gael continues on Thursday evening when Kerry's Marc Ó Sé reflects on his career.

From a famous An Ghaeltacht sporting family, Ó Sé enjoyed a hugely successful career with the Kingdom.

The classy Ó Sé won five All-Ireland Senior Championships, 10 Munster SFC, three All-Stars, and three Allianz Football League medals.

Ahead of the broadcast of his Laochra Gael episode, Ó Sé sat down with the national media to chat about his passion for Kerry football, the cherished memories, and trying to assist the next generation.

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Question: Watching back, was any part of the programme particularly emotional?

Marc Ó Sé: Funnily enough, the 2002 campaign. I look back on it there and see how light I was. I couldn’t get over that, to be honest. For example, that day in the final against Armagh, I was 11 stone that day, and if you fast forward when I retired I was 13 and a half stone. I was two and a half stone heavier. It’s frightening when you think about it like that. Whatever about skill-set, I definitely wasn’t developed and you’re going into a game then and marking the likes of Diarmaid Marsden and it’s scary. I suppose I’ll look back on that and it was disappointing the year that was in it with my Dad passing away and Darragh being captain, in particular. You’d definitely have loved to have seen Darragh going up the steps to lift the Sam Maguire, but look these things happen for a reason and it wasn’t to be, and thankfully, I went on and put things right afterwards.

Q: The tragic incident highlighted before the 2009 final, how did you get your head right for the final after that?

MOS: Some people say you’d be cold-hearted in these situations, but whatever it was, football always, always, got me focused. When you get into a train on a Saturday morning with the lads, you get back into the environment and back in with the lads and back into your routine and you’re able to block things out. You know what, it’s actually similar to 2002 when my father passed away, when we had made the decision to play against Cork in the replay. He died on the Tuesday, we buried him on the Thursday, and we said we’d train that evening in Killarney and for that hour everything seemed to go away. Whatever it is with football, it definitely took your mind away from things.

Q: What was it like in 2014, to win an All-Ireland medal without the brothers?

MOS: To be totally honest, when they went you’d definitely miss them around the place. You talk about Darragh, particularly Darragh, the whole of the county has missed Darragh. What have we won since he retired? Two All-Irelands? That’s alarming from a Kerry point of view. They say you never replace certain players. When Gooch retired, we replaced him with David Clifford perhaps, but with Darragh I just don’t think we properly replaced him for the longevity he gave, for the 16, 17 years he gave. It’s a needy area for Kerry at the moment. My God, if you look at the three fellas who have gone, Cillian Burke to Australia, [Adrian] Spillane, Stephen O’Brien, you’re down three half-forwards from last year. When you won the All-Ireland three years ago. you had the bones of five midfielders togged on the given day. You had Diarmuid O’Connor at wing forward who could play midfield, Joe O’Connor came off the bench, you had Jack Barry and David Moran and you had Stefan Okunbor. Five fellas who could play in the middle of the field. You don’t have that luxury at the moment, unfortunately. We have a young fella from An Ghaeltacht at the moment who was supposed to get his opportunity on Sunday, but unfortunately the game was called off. It really is a needy area for Kerry. I definitely missed the boys when they were gone. Now, life does go on, you get on with it as you have to, but I definitely missed the lads when they retired, no doubt about that.

Q: Did you always enjoy representing Kerry and what changed during your decade and a half?

MOS: Ah Jesus, I did, I did. When I was watching the likes of Páidí playing and ‘The Golden Years’ tape, there was nothing else in West Kerry at the time. There was no soccer, no rugby, no basketball, no hurling. It was just Gaelic football, simple as. So, I started playing it around eight going back to Gallarus with the Ghaeltacht and I knew fairly soon that all I wanted to do was play with Kerry. In that period, Kerry were really poor and the years of the famine were coming and I grew up then watching the likes of Cork and Meath and then the northern teams afterwards. The big thing I wanted to do was for play for Kerry. Páidí retired, Fergal, my eldest brother, was captain of the Kerry minors. That was a big thrill going to watch him in the 1991 Munster final and the minors lost to Cork. Himself and Seamus Moynihan were midfield for Kerry. In the senior game, Kerry beat Limerick in Killarney and Jack O’Shea was still playing, I think Spillane was still playing. It was the year they played Down in the semi-final.

I remember another year, I was over in the terrace on the far side, I couldn't really get to see the play because it was a different type of a terrace, then. There was a wall, my father lifted me over. I saw Teddy McCarthy give an exhibition of high fielding, even though it was the opposition, I just saw this fella leaping up into the air for high balls, he was probably smaller than the fellas he was marking. It had a huge impression on me. Then, I suppose, Fergal starting off, captain of the Kerry minors, Darragh getting his chance, Tomas being a sub in '97 for the All-Ireland. Getting to Croke Park. Kerry hadn't got to Croke Park in years, funny enough when Tomás was a minor in '96, it was the first time he was ever in Croke Park, would you believe? He played that day in the All-Ireland semi-final against Mayo, which they won. All of those things had a huge effect on me, I definitely wanted to do what the lads were doing, to try to be as good as the lads. When I was growing up, physicality at an early age came against me, I suppose you could say up until I was 23 or 24. I only started to develop properly then with sports science and all of that. You look at the underage players now, at the moment, they're doing all of this with the development squads, all the core work, building the body up. That came at a later stage for me, but I possibly gained at the other end in that I had a bit of longevity, and I played until I was 36. It was a huge thing to try to play with Kerry.

Q: The tradition, both in your family and Kerry, do you just embrace that? You referenced when you were growing up Kerry weren’t as strong, but still no All-Ireland is seen as a failure? Do you just deal with it?

MOS: You do, it is expected, Kerry win All-Irelands. So, I went in for 2001, we got an awful hammering from Meath. Then, in '02 Armagh pipped us in the second half. '03 Tyrone, unfortunately that was the end for Páidí. Obviously, '04 getting over the line, winning the All-Ireland. The big thing for us, and little did we know it then, but we were in six All-Ireland finals in a row, it was a real golden era for Kerry, winning four of those six, possibly we should have won another one. It was incredible to be involved in all of that, the rollercoaster that it was, it continued on for six years. We weren't involved in 2010, back again in 2011, another one we possibly should have won. This was the way that it went and it was incredible. At the end of every year, you'd go on a big holiday with the team to some lovely destination on the other side of the world. We were very lucky, privileged to have played with Kerry, to have played with such great players and played against great players. I played with great players, the likes of Darragh, Séamus Moynihan, Tomas, Gooch, Declan, Donaghy, Paul, the list goes on, Tom O'Sullivan, Mike McCarthy, Aidan O'Mahony, I could keep going and going such were the quality of players there. I was very lucky. We mentioned the Kerry teams that weren't getting to All-Irelands at the time, you could grow up in any period, we were just lucky it happened to be in a period at the same time, and lucky to be getting to so many All-Ireland finals.

Q: Now in your role as a teacher, do you see it as part of the remit in a way to pass a love of Kerry football through the generations? Is there satisfaction in trying to help them progress?

MOS: I'd have been involved with the development squads in Kerry for a couple of years, I enjoyed that. I was involved with various club teams in the county and my own club team, An Ghaeltacht. Then, obviously, my school team CBS, The Green, in Tralee, I've been involved for the last 21 or 22 years with various school teams from U15s all the way up to seniors. We got pipped, beaten by the Sem two weeks ago, they're now in the Corn Uí Mhuirí final against Mounthawk. You've good years and bad years, but it is great to see the players coming up through the ranks, especially watching fellas go on to maybe wear a Kerry jersey. That is very satisfying when you see maybe that you possibly had a hand in maybe helping these fellas improve in some way their game. I'm very lucky to be involved in school teams, watching those players coming up against other teams around the county and in Munster. It is great to be part of that.

Q: Is there any game that you still cannot watch in full?

MOS: I don't think I've ever watched the Armagh '02 one. I just can't watch it. Afterwards, there'd have been video analysis done, the manager would have picked parts in the game you'd look at. We went in four points up that day against Armagh at half-time. I was this cocky young fella, thinking we've this game won. It was an awful way. When I think back to then, if I had an old head on those young shoulders, I'd have loved to have done things differently. I know I say it in the programme, that I felt I let the side down, and I think I did. That was the one game. It is gas that it is your first final, but that was the one game. You've loads of games you play in that you feel you don't play well. I could put a big list of games there, but certainly that game against Armagh, the first one in 2002. We played them in the league the following year in Tralee, I got a goal in the last minute to win it. Anytime I came up against them afterwards, I was going to make sure I played well, but that Armagh game I've nightmares about it, thinking about the way I was defending, too loose. I know I was marking Marsden, the clip I was watching the last night, it shows me running off the field being substituted after 50 minutes, Tom O'Sullivan comes on. I was only a slip of a lad. Christ, when I see it back, I'd nearly get a fright looking at myself. That was the game, it doesn't rest easy with me at all, unfortunately.

Q: Did that 2002 experience serve you well in the long run?

MOS: Definitely. It was still hard. I suppose the physicality did not come to me until 2004/05, I was getting stronger then. If you go from a situation where you are marking Gooch every night, Gooch was probably half a stone lighter than I was back then, and then you are put into a different arena where you are marking Marsden that definitely does not help your game training like that, whereas if I was thrown on the likes of a Johnny Crowley or somebody different it would have been better. But, yes, it definitely helps, what doesn’t break you, makes you stronger. I was definitely going to come back stronger and I was determined to make sure, to prove people wrong, I suppose, because I knew I was better than how I performed in Croke Park so my big thing was to prove people wrong after that.

Q: Do you think the obsession for youngsters to play is not as strong now as it was in your time?

MOS: I do yeah, I don’t think it is there. It comes from the families; it does not just come from the player himself. I look back at the stories about Paidí when he was growing up. My grandmother would not have been into football, she was from Sligo, my grandfather Tommy Ó Se would not have been that much into football, but our first cousin, Tom Long over the road was and maybe Paidí wanted to emulate him. It was probably someone within the family and my grandmother made sure she did everything in her body to ensure he achieved what he achieved. But I don’t think it is in the county now. I mentioned that there is soccer, rugby, basketball, my young fella now plays basketball, soccer as well as football and obviously he will have to make a decision in a couple of years as to what he will want to play. Another example is David Clifford, when he was offered to go off to Australia, there was never going to be a situation knowing the Cliffords, knowing their background, knowing their father, Dermot. I didn’t really know his late mom, Ellen, but knowing his uncle Fergus, there was only one thing that David Clifford was ever going to do, and that was play for Kerry. It comes from within the family. You hear the stories about all these fellows who are going to go off to Australia and you would wonder is that level of passion there to achieve your boyhood dream which is to play in the green and gold. I am not so sure. I think it has waned big-time

Q: Could Mark O’Connor have been player to replace Darragh?

MOS: There have been great players, don’t get me wrong, David Moran and Anthony Maher have been really good, but Daragh was the mainstay for 15/16 years. We all thought that Mark O’Connor was going to be. I saw a clip this morning on Instagram which showed a clip of him catching a ball in an All-Ireland minor final and I remember him being in with us in 2016 in my last year there and what a talent he was. He certainly was, any fellow that plays minor final and Hogan Cup finals two years in a row and is man of the match in all of them is an incredible achievement as a player. He backs that up, then, when he went to Geelong, he has had such a career there. His great granduncle Gega Connor would have won five All-Ireland medals with Kerry back in the 40s. I definitely think Mark was the one who got away. It is easy to say, if we put this stuff in place for these players, but the attraction of going to a beautiful country, warm weather, getting paid for something you enjoying doing, it is hard not to put your hand up for that. I know that I would never have been invited over there, but if I was I would have stayed at home. The ideal one was Tadhg Kennelly who wanted both and the fairytale came true when he came in ‘09 and won an All-Ireland and All-Star.

Q: Is there any intention in Kerry to still bring O’Connor back at some stage?

MOS: I am not sure what the circumstances are with Mark. I was told he bought a house over there, he is on the leadership group in Geelong and he has won the AFL over there, I am not sure what his circumstances are, but what a story he is. Obviously, we would love to have him in Kerry. I am sure Jack O’Connor has asked him back, I know back in the day he was asked back, but it is a hard thing to leave a situation where you are getting paid and you are on a contract as well too. I am not really sure what his situation is, but I have no doubt any Kerry manager would love to see him coming back in and applying the experience he has gained in Australia to our game. When Tadhg came home you could see the professionalism in the stuff that he brought.

Q: What is your assessment on the new rules?

MOS: It is early days yet, but I enjoyed it, I have to say. The pitches were - in Salthill they were tough conditions. I would have liked to have seen more kicking; I think there were opportunities where the ball could have been kicked sooner into the inside line and it wasn’t. It is something that teams will have to look at.

I like the solo and go. It speeds up the game, I think. Do you know what I enjoyed as well I have to say was, obviously Fitzmaurice was on on Saturday night and he’s on the FRC so he was able to explain rules where maybe people at home are watching it and not really understanding what’s going on, but then on Sunday with the Down-Roscommon match you have David Coldrick, who was coming in and talking why the rule, why the referee was doing this and people at home definitely will understand it that bit more when they see that.

Q: Is there anything that stands out that mightn’t work?

MOS: At the moment nothing really. Obviously, they’ve brought a load of rules in and, like, at club level it’s probably going to be really hard to implement all of them. It really is early days yet to see is there anything, but the goalkeeper alright, definitely, Blaine Hughes nearly got caught at one stage and I was actually wondering would Rafferty start because I was saying that the way the game is going out the field, the 12 v 11, I thought he was going to start and it wasn’t until such time as they were chasing the game then that they brought him on, but he definitely had an impact when he came in. Had he been on sooner, it would have been interesting to see what happened but the two-point swing is a big thing. You could be winning there by four or five points and next thing two scores outside the arc and you have four points got - it’s huge. So, I think as time goes on players will understand more. I think a lot of the defending goes on in the arc where there’s players standing there and if you’re shooting outside it, it’s that bit more difficult, but Galway got a few nice ones I have to say.

Q: Are Kerry at a disadvantage going to Derry on Sunday, having not played a game last weekend?

MOS: Kerry, the team that was selected, there’s a lot of young fellas there getting their game which I think will be really hard for Kerry. I always use the example of the Dubs - whenever Jim Gavin was blooding a new player, he was able to integrate two or three players into a team with 12 experienced players and I always thought that was the way to do it, whereas there’s a load of Kerry fellas now thrown in at the deep end, kind of sink or swim, and maybe that experience, with the exception of the defence maybe, maybe experience isn’t there yet. So, I’d be wary of Kerry going up to Derry next weekend considering that you’ve got so many young fellas there and it’s a daunting task when you’re trying to win a match, particularly above in Derry, a right tough journey up there, that would be a real daunting task for Kerry.

Q: Who are Tadhg, Tommy and Alice playing for?

MOS: They’re playing with Stacks, yeah. They’re playing with the Stacks so Tadhg has started off. Alice actually plays with Cordal/Scart, the ladies, and Tadhg is playing with Stacks. Tommy hasn’t started yet although I’d say judging this fella, I’d say we ain’t seen nothing yet. Great oul craic, I have to say, the three of them. There’s a bit of an age gap between all three. Tommy now had us up early this morning, five o’clock, up to all sorts of mischief, but Tadhg’s enjoying it and Alice is enjoying it. We were to train on Sunday morning below in my school actually, that’s where the training goes on in the winter time, but it was called off because of the weather. He’s getting into it now and I suppose he’s still only eight, Alice is 14 and Tommy is only two, but, as I said, they’re great oul craic and they love watching the games as well when they’re on the box so I look forward to it. If they like it, they like it, if they don’t, I don’t want to be the Dad who’s putting the pressure on because certainly looking at my own father there was never really pressure put on. If you played well, he’d say you were grand. If you played poor, he’d say you were grand, whereas other people would probably be more blunt, but I think his way of dealing with us was quite good actually. When he was at the game, then, I used to be at the games with him, when I hadn’t started yet and Tomas and Darragh were playing and Jesus he’d get very nervous. You’d be sitting next to him and his knee would be going into your knee, pushing, and then they’d give off the ball and he’d relax again for a bit. He kicked every ball with them. Look, it’s great. If it doesn’t, once they’re happy and healthy, that’s the main thing.

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2025 Laochra Gael series

Programme 1: Pádraic Maher, 9.30pm, Thursday 23rd January

Programme 2: Marc Ó Sé, 9.30pm, Thursday 30th January

Programme 3: Ursula Jacob,, 9.30pm, Thursday 6th February

Programme 4: Ronan Clarke, 9.30pm, Thursday 13th February

Programme 5: Michael Bond, 9.30pm, Thursday 20th February

Programme 6: Bríd Stack, 9.30pm, Thursday 27th February

Programme 7: Ben & Jerry O’Connor, 9.30pm, Thursday 6th March

Programme 8: Eamon McGee,, 9.30pm, Thursday 13th March