KIERAN Donaghy has said he played some of his best football for Kerry during Pat O’Shea’s term in charge of the county team, the highlight being the All-Ireland championship victory in 2007.
He said the Killarney man – now back in charge of his beloved Dr Crokes – knew how to get the most out of him and he described him as a very innovative coach, bringing some of his basketball skills and knowledge to play from the sideline.
“He was a great thinker of the game, very tactically astute,” Donaghy says in his big-selling autobiography, What Do You Think Of That?
The Austin Stacks clubman divulged that he loved the way Pat O’Shea managed the dressing room before big games, bouncing around, fists clenched and reminding the players that no matter what they encountered out on the field, they were representing Kerry and they had a great history.
“You could tell that it was a huge honour for him to coach the county and he was able to get across to us about what a privilege it was for us to play for that jersey,” Donaghy wrote in the book which is an excellent take on his life, his highs and lows, his achievements and disappointments and his sporting days, in both football and basketball.
But the player they call Star acknowledged that while his relationship with O’Shea was “ninety percent positive”, they didn’t always agree on everything and he recounts stories of how tensions arouse in the 2008 season when Donaghy was struggling with injury.
Pat O’Shea, one of the most lethal forwards of his generation and an All-Ireland Club Championship winner in 1992, is still managing at a very high level, steering Dr Crokes to an emphatic victory in this year’s Kerry Senior Football Championship and overcoming the first hurdle in their Munster Club Football Championship campaign in Quilty, Co Clare last weekend.
* Kieran Donaghy will be signing copies of his What Do You Think Of That? in the Eason Bookshop at 12 noon this Saturday.
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