Farney hero Karl O'Connell on making it to top despite being a late starter

KARL O'Connell turned 38 two weeks ago.

- Karl O'Kane

His story is a remarkable one in many ways.

With no interest in Gaelic football, he didn't play the game until he was 17 years of age, but would go on to have a stellar career in the jerseys of Monaghan and Tyholland.

The place he would arrive at wasn't easy got to though:

"It's just trying to understand that it's very hard to solo going at the speed I could go," he says.

"There were balls flying up in the air, balls left behind, balls going to the side."

10 years of graft later he started for Monaghan in an Ulster Final and won his second Anglo-Celt medal after being a non-playing sub two years earlier and doing well coming off the bench in the 2014 decider defeat by Donegal.

Two years later (2017) he made his Ireland debut, at 29 years of age. He won an All Star the following season (2018) at 30.

There can't be too many players who started out so late and rose to similar or greater heights.

O'Connell arrived in Monaghan Town in the mid 90s as a kid from Dublin's South Inner City, with father Joseph and mother Patricia.

He was ready to hurl, but found it wasn't a thing in that neck of the woods.

"I remember a hurler coming into school," he says. "The school helped to get the hurl, the sliotar, the helmet and it came down in the car with us to Monaghan.

"You couldn't have taken it off me. I used to puck against the wall for a couple of hours, for ages, but as soon as I got to Monaghan it just disappeared. I never ventured down (to play hurling).

"I was seven. Probably a bit of shyness. I didn't want to approach it (football). It was probably soccer for me that I enjoyed a bit more."

O'Connell's older brother Ciaran, who would go on to run for Ireland was part of the local Glaslough Harriers Athletic Club. Karl followed him down.