The boy from county Armagh who has turned into the Johnny Sexton of Gaelic Football
Rian O'Neill has lit up this All-Ireland championship
Rian O’Neill glanced towards the Kerry posts. Enda McNulty looked back in time.
McNulty has had two lives. The first saw him win an All-Ireland with Joe Kernan’s 2002 team. Then, when that curtain fell, he emerged as Ireland’s leading sports psychologist, on the staff when Longford Town won soccer’s FAI Cup; there when Leinster started gathering Heineken Cups.
And then in 2016, he was standing on the Soldier Field sideline, having spent a week conducting one on one debriefings with 20 of Joe Schmidt’s 23-man squad.
They were in Chicago, the All Blacks chasing a fistful of dollars, the Irish rugby team chasing history. McNulty was the players’ go-to guy if they had a mental hang-up about their form or status. But one guy in particular didn’t have any baggage at all.
Joey Carbery turned 21 two days before Ireland’s win over New Zealand, celebrating his birthday by eating out in a Chicago steakhouse. McNulty was there too. His steak was well cooked, Carbery’s medium rare.
Forty eight hours they were standing next to one another when Johnny Sexton went down with an injury; Ireland’s lead hanging in the balance. McNulty was close enough to hear Mick Kearney, the team manager, tell Carbery to strip off his tracksuit, that he was about to make his debut.
But it was what happened next that stuck in McNulty’s memory.
“It reminded me of a calf in spring time being let out of the shed and onto a field for the first time,” says McNulty, “because Joey didn’t run onto that pitch, he bounced. He had 100 per cent confidence. He oozed it. It’s rare you see something like that.”
Then two weeks ago he saw it again.
This time it was a player from his county, his sport.
McNulty spent a decade on the same team as O’Neill’s uncle, Oisin McConville, and his manager, Kieran McGeeney. So he knows he’s cut from good cloth and knows that when a game is in the melting pot, a McConville doesn’t hide.
So, with 66 minutes on the clock, with the scores level, Rian O’Neill became that calf in springtime, able to run at a stage of the game when others were flagging, able to blank out the shots he missed and focus instead on the one he was about to take.
“That day in Chicago, Carbery was like that; Johnny Sexton is like that, too,” McNulty quietly said, information gleaned from a decade working with Ireland’s greatest rugby players.
It was Sexton who dropped the 45-yard goal that sealed a last minute win for Ireland in Paris six years ago; O’Neill who popped a 50-yard point over the bar to give Armagh the lead for the first time in this month’s All-Ireland semi-final.
The parallel, to McNulty, was obvious.
McNulty says: “I have worked with guys who have climbed Everest, have worked with rugby players, athletes from all sports.
“In everyone’s journey, there is always a tipping point, when you realise you can go further, when you draw confidence from an achievement.
"For example, the Armagh team I played on, that tipping point came in 1999, when we won an Ulster title. Finally we had a trophy, the county’s first in 17 years. Three years later we had an All-Ireland.
“In 2011, Dublin found their tipping point against Kerry. Eight more All-Irelands followed. So, let’s fast forward to what Armagh did two weeks ago.
"They could have been forgiven for throwing in the towel that day. Instead they showed such mental resilience.
“In certain games you catapult yourself onto the next level. That was one of those games, that semi final. It required emotional toughness, resilience, years of conditioning, being a well coached team, all those contributing factors led to their win.”
And it required having a player who was unafraid to go up Everest’s north face, who was willing to take responsibility when his team needed him. “You had the two Cliffords on the field,” McNulty says, “incredible players, two of the best in the country.
“And Rian O’Neill looked around and said to himself, ‘I belong in this company. Give me that ball. Let me do my thing.’ That mentality, that comes from so many things, years of hard work and conditioning, the guidance of a supreme coaching team, the masterful advice of Hugh Campbell (Armagh’s sports psychologist).
“And also, the environment he grew up in: Crossmaglen. Think of what that club has achieved, 47 county titles, six All-Irelands, 11 Ulsters. Winning is all they know. Being a McConville. I know Oisin. There was one tough boy, resilient, determined. Kieran McGeeney, a leader. It all adds to it.”
Diarmuid Connolly watched the game from the opposite stand to McNulty.
He remembers the 66th minute point alright but also something else, a hit on 58 minutes on Paul Murphy, when Kerry were a point clear and thinking of launching a counter attack.
That notion soon ceased as soon as O’Neill’s shoulder connected with the Kerry cornerback.
“Rian reminds me of Michael Murphy,” Connolly said. “Over the last couple of years he has not found his perfect position but what McGeeney is doing with him is to give him licence to play off the cuff.
“You see him everywhere. His passing range is phenomenal so he can be a playmaker; he is 6 '3 so he can field balls in midfield; his athleticism is second to none so he can track back and then when he is close to goal, he has that ruthlessness that you need.”
The stats back that up, seven goals and 87 points coming from his feet in the 26 games he has played for Armagh since making his Championship debut way back in 2019. Now 26 he is nearing his peak.
“Special is the word that I would use to describe him,” says Aaron Kernan of his Crossmaglen team mate.
“I remember when he first started as an Under 10. The household he comes from has had such an influence on his story, his dad Gareth being an inter-county footballer; Dora, his mum, is from the McConville household.
“He would have known nothing else but his dad and uncles being successful. Being led up the Dundalk Road to pull on the Crossmaglen jersey, getting here (to an All-Ireland final) is something he would always have wanted.
“He had everything that it takes to be a top player in terms of his physique, his skill set. Yet even though he was evidently talented as a kid, he has stayed quiet and unassuming.
“That point against Kerry, from 50 yards, that’s part of Rian, that ability to do something brilliant. But there’s a lot to him. Late in extra time he took a huge catch under our own posts as Kerry tried to get an equaliser.
“Again that’s Rian. He takes responsibility.
“He is a leader but not a talker, not a person who is going to be giving big speeches this week.
“Now there will be huge pressure and huge expectancy on him but that is part and parcel when you are one of the top players in the country. I am delighted he is getting the chance to shine on the biggest stage of all because he was born to be there.”
As Kernan spoke, his famous father, Joe, nodded in agreement.
Joe was Armagh’s manager in 2002 and also their leading scorer when they lost the 1977 final and also in charge when they made the 2003 decider, the leading man in three of their previous four All-Ireland appearances.
In other words, he is qualified to judge a good player when he sees one.
“Rian is one of those,” Kernan senior says.
“His finishing … he oozes class.
“He can chip a ball over the bar when some guys would drive it. He is a class act. Is there more in him? I think there is. He is a man for the big day.”
None come bigger than tomorrow.
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