I wasn't going to tell Jack to hit the road

MAC DELIGHTED TO GET O'CONNOR'S CALL

- BY PAT NOLAN

AODÁN MAC GEARAILT was always going to answer Jack O'Connor's call once it came, but the David Clifford bonus material made it all the more appealing.

It was around this time last year that O'Connor's Kerry management team began to unravel as selectors Mike Quirke and Diarmuid Murphy stepped aside, while coach Paddy Tally took up the Derry manager's job at the back end of the year.

Mac Gearailt was one of those who O'Connor asked to help to fill the vacuum in his set up.

"I have a good relationship with Jack, even as a player going back and I suppose we'd be similar enough in the way we see football," Mac Gearailt explains.

"I was involved with the Kerry development squad under-15 and he asked me would I like to get involved and I was delighted.

"At the end of the day, these opportunities don't come around too often, so I said, 'Yeah, absolutely, Jack'.

A double All-Ireland winner with Kerry in 2000 and 2006, when O'Connor was manager, Mac Gearailt was a forward with an eye for a score, so the opportunity to work with someone as talented as Clifford naturally enticed him.