JACK O’CONNOR LOOKED like he had kicked every ball with his Kerry team after their 1-16 to 1-6 victory over Tyrone in the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship qualifier on Saturday.

“A huge effort,” O’Connor told TV3, “with tremendous tackling and workrate and fellas really putting their bodies on the line and that’s what we had to do.

Right after half-time Tyrone came back strong and got a goal, which I thought was a small bit against the run of play, but our fellas came back and responded straight away and that was important.”

Kieran Donaghy got the Kingdom goal but O’Connor said that the key to victory was slowing down the Tyrone attack and building momentum from the back.

“It was very to hard to do that in the heat out there, but our fellas did it and we were glad to be able to put five subs to keep the pace going.”

While acknowledging that winning in front of the home fans was great for his team, O’Connor played down the significance of beating the Red Hand.

He described it as simply a “step on the way” towards more All-Ireland glory.

Watch the full interview below:

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