GAA.ie is delighted to announce that former Kerry footballer Declan O’Sullivan will pen a regular Gaelic Football column for us this summer in association with GAAGO, starting next week.

O’Sullivan won five All-Ireland senior medals with Kerry, two of them as captain, and is one of the greatest Gaelic Footballers of the modern era.

He sat down with GAA.ie’s John Harrington this week to talk about...

• How he has dealt with being forced to retire from the game by a knee injury.

• Why he feels blessed to have had the playing career he did.

• His utterly driven approach to being a Kerry footballer.

• His quick transition into coaching.

• What sort of column he intends to write.

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**John Harrington: **Have you found it difficult to adjust to a life without playing Gaelic Football?

**Declan O’Sullivan: **It is difficult, but to be honest my situation is probably a bit different because injuries curtailed me. There wasn't this conflict in your mind whether you were still capable of playing. So I knew my body wasn't able for it, and there is a finality with that.

What I really missed is that I always imagined going back to the club for three, four or five years after finishing up with the county. To be fully back committed to the club. To have that connection with the lads locally, I really miss that. I found that hard because you miss out on that interaction, the weekly interaction with fellas.

It is quite difficult if you're an inter-county footballer nowadays, while you play when you can with your club, you definitely miss a lot of games and you're not as active as you would like. I would've liked to go back because we have a young team as well there so I would've liked to go back to give it my full commitment. That is how I imagined it would happen so that has been disappointing.

JH: You say the finality of being injured made it easier to accept retirement. But you’re only 32, so does a part of you not think you’d still have plenty more to give were it not for your knee injury?

**DOS: **At this stage of my life, I got married, I've two young kids, where I live is maybe an hour and 10 minutes from Killarney.  A lot of things would have made it very difficult, even with work, travelling, so I was very comfortable with the decision to walk away. I had thought about it in 2013, I felt that 2014 would probably be my last year. The way it turned out, I struggled with my knees towards the end of that year badly. I didn't train properly so I knew straightway the right decision was to step away from inter-county. If I could get some work done on my knees that could help prolong my club career that would be a bonus.

JH: Your last act as a footballer was to set up the winning score for South Kerry in the Kerry Senior Championship Final. Not a bad way to bow out.

**DOS: **Absolutely, I've been blessed really. I finished up with Kerry after winning an All Ireland and then with South Kerry winning a County Championship. I've been blessed in both, I suppose I would have liked to go back to my club to win a South Kerry Championship or win another Junior County Championship to represent Kerry in the Junior series which we did previously, but I've been blessed how it finished up really.

JH: What sort of shape are your knees in now?

DOS: They are fine, I haven't put much pressure on them. I played in an exhibition game for Mick O'Dywer about a week ago, I must say I was fairly stiff and a bit sore after it! Day to day they are fine, I don't have trouble travelling in the car. I can kick ball with the young fellas out in the yard, that type of stuff.

JH: You had an incredibly successful career as an inter-county footballer. How do you reflect on it all now?

**DOS: **Yeah, when I look back on it, I was very lucky to be involved with a great group. Some great players came along, we were very successful as well. There were some disappointing days as well. I wouldn't say you can have regrets looking back on it, but of course disappointments. I think we always reacted very well to those disappointments. We've always stuck together, when you are at that high level of sport it is a very demanding place to be in.

We've never turned on each other, we have always been really close. It was great to finish off in 2014 winning the All Ireland. That was the icing on the cake, without 2014 I would have seen from 2009 on as a real disappointment. I felt we were capable of winning more, 2011 was one we were disappointed about losing that one. So 2014 maybe made 2011 a little bit easier to take. It was great to finish off winning that.

JH: Was 2006 a red-letter year for you? You were booed off the field when you were subbed in the Munster Final, but finished the year by lifting the Sam Maguire Cup as Kerry captain.

DOS: Yeah, 2005 was a really tough year too. I was relatively young, I was captain of Kerry, that was a real strong Kerry team that time when we lost to Tyrone in the final. I suppose coming off 2005 trying to process losing the Final and there was probably a hangover going into 2006. That was with the whole group. I think we struggled really to get going at the start of the Championship in 2006. We were struggling with our performances, I was struggling with my form.

I think the Kerry public were very disappointed with how we lost the 2005 final, they were really anxious that we would atone for that. 2006 was difficult for a lot of the year, but it was great to come out the other side of it. You learn a lot of lessons, that comes down to experience now. I've used a lot of what happened in 2006 since, just dealing with difficult situations knowing that if you knuckle down and work hard and really keep doing things that you need to do you'll come out the other side of it. I had some great teammates, we were very close, we stuck together. It would've been very easy to turn on each other that time, but we stuck together to come out the right side of it.

JH: Is it true that you left your job after that 2006 Munster Final just so you could focus on your football for the rest of the year and do yourself justice?

**DOS: **I did leave my job, but I had planned to go travelling at the end of the year. I wasn't exactly career orientated at that time. The way I looked at it was that I was captain in 2005, we didn't win. A lot of people said that was going to be the one chance to captain Kerry, but then it comes around a second time. You say to yourself that you really want to make it count this time, but 2006 was going badly for me again.

I didn't want the year to finish badly again like 2005 so I said to myself I'm not going to get the opportunity to captain Kerry again, so no regrets. It was a huge honour, I needed to get back playing some good football. I left the job, and really started concentrating on getting my place back in the team. I worked really hard, my whole week and day revolved around Kerry training and preparing for whatever games we had coming up.

Looking back now of course it was worth it. Was it advisable or a smart move in terms of my career or anything like that? It probably wasn't. But I've certainly no regrets.

JH: Do you count yourself fortunate to have come on the scene at a time when Kerry had many other extremely talented footballers?

DOS: Absolutely, as a player yourself you develop so quickly in that kind of company. You've different characters, the quiet fellas, who did their job on the field, you've the guys who are very relaxed taking everything in their stride, everything came a bit naturally to them. Then you've driven characters in there so it was a great mix.  It was never one or two guys driving the thing all of the time, there were different periods.

You'd learn so much off all the different characters inside in the dressing room. Of course we were lucky enough, we had good management teams at the time as well. Obviously I came in first with Páidi which was a great honour. For somebody like Páidi to ring you up to ask you to come into the Kerry squad. Then Jack came along, he had two stints, Pat O'Shea was very good, and I finished up with Eamonn Fitzmaurice, who was excellent as well. There was great knowledge and great experience in all of the groups I've been involved in. You'd learn an awful lot from each guy really.

JH: You used the expression ‘driven characters’ to describe some of your team-mates. One of those team-mates, Paul Galvin, once described you in very similar terms. When it came to football, were you extremely driven to be the best you could be?

DOS: Yeah, I was extremely driven. The enjoyment I got from playing football was going out every night in training giving it everything on the field, trying to improve. As a group if we were planning or the management were looking to do something you'd give it 100%. Then you'd come off the field, that is the enjoyment I got from it. I suppose I came from a small club in South Kerry where we were always struggling for existence in many ways. It is a young club from the 1950s, we disbanded again so a lot of the players went to Waterville or emigrated so the club disbanded.

Then it started up again in 1976 and I suppose the general area and the players I watched as a young fella and lads I played with and the coaches, that is the type of community we were, everybody gave 100%. It was a minimum requirement, you worked hard for your teammates, you never gave in. That is the way I was brought up so I would have always seen commitment and work rate every much as important as talent or skill. Everyday I went out I tried to control that, your work rate, your attitude. That is how I tried to approach the game.

JH: Since retiring from inter-county football you have made a quick transition into coaching by helping out Jack O’Connor with the minor footballers and now the U-21 footballers as a coach and selector. Yourself and Jack obviously go back a long way because he would have manged you at schools level with Coláiste na Sceilge before he did so with Kerry. How have you found working with him and seeing things from the perspective as a member of management, rather than as a player?

**DOS: **I've enjoyed it. Of course it is completely different, in no way does it replace the thrill of playing, it is a different type of enjoyment being part of a management team or coaching. You're really concentrating on the whole group, you need feedback from players to move the thing forward. It is a very interactive thing, it all depends on the group you have and your approach to it. Trying to deal with when the players go over the white line your control lessens an awful lot.

You just try to deal with how best to approach that side of things. It is a great learning curve for me, I played with great teams and under some great managers. Obviously being involved with Jack with the minors in 2015 and the under-21s now is a great learning curve for me. Obviously I've a great long term relationship with Jack. There is that comfort between us that allows me to go ahead to do a bit of coaching in my own way. He has a certain amount of trust in me, and I've a certain amount of trust in him. It is a good environment for me to try to learn the coaching side of things.

JH: Would you have been very analytical of the game as a player? Presumably you have to be as a coach now?

**DOS: **Yeah, it is different as a player. In my last four or five years playing you become more aware of the whole group. In the Kerry side of things you are watching out for the younger players coming through, you want to pass on a bit of knowledge you have, dealing with what it is like being involved in the Kerry set-up and the pitfalls that might be there. You try to pass on some tips and you try to encourage younger fellas to ask questions. How teams set up you become more comfortable in yourself to give your opinion to coaches or management. As players in meeting rooms we would discuss it, we were very lucky with the managers we had.

They always valued the player input. They realised the players out on the field were going through the whole experience so there would be a lot of knowledge from players out on the field. Managers I've been involved with have been very receptive to that type of analysis and that feedback the players give. That is something I take into coaching, the players are experiencing it so any feedback you get from them is very valuable. Definitely if you go into the coaching side you have to be aware of not only what you're doing yourself, but what the opposition is doing or going to try to do during games. When you get the opportunity, at half-time, to get your message in. You have to try to influence it to suit your own team.

JH: Is it fair to say that inter-county football has changed a lot in the years from when you started playing to when you finished up?

DOS: Absolutely. There is a lot of negativity now about it being too defensive or teams are straight jacketed. To be honest it is just the natural evolution of the game really. You can see it creeping into hurling now which would have been unheard of a couple of years ago. I think preparation now is key, you can't throw something at players midstream. You have to prepare for all different eventualities. You have to do your analysis on the teams that you are going to be playing, and your own team has to be very adaptable and flexible.

You have to prepare for different scenarios so players are comfortable and flexible enough if something happens in a game to carry out the plan you have. The time for video analysis and stats and that type of stuff is very important. You still have to have your own philosophy, your own way of playing. You have to stay true to that which is dependent on the playing group you have, the players you have, and their strengths and weaknesses. You then devise a game-plan around it, but it has to be very flexible to switch during the game depending on what the opposition throw at you.

JH: What sort of column will you hope to write for GAA.ie?

DOS: I will try to be as honest as possible. I will try to look at the games as coldly as I can to analyse properly, to call it as I see it more or less. I will try not to be overly dramatic or overly controversial. Mainly I will try to analyse things as best I can or if it is a preview piece examine the different patterns teams are trying to go with and offer some insight on how they might go ahead to counter each other.

That is the type of thing I hope to do. I'll try not to deal too much in general stuff, I'll try to be more specific if possible. That is my thought process at the moment, how it develops, how it evolves I'm not entirely sure. I'm sure I will comment on some topics that are happening and going on around the place. But I will try to mainly deal with specifics.

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