‘I was thinking my career with Kerry wouldn’t be too long’ – Stephen O’Brien shocked his body has lasted distance

You see, before he was 18, he’d had two knee operations. Nothing major, but big enough to suggest any Kerry career would be short and the time to make an impact was now. He just needed some clear road.

O’Brien was always talented, perhaps just more understated than his peers. Billy Morgan tells the story of an unknown player landing at Sigerson trials in UCC for the 2011 campaign.

“We didn’t know who he was, he looked very small,” Morgan recalls. “I remember making some sort of a comment like: ‘Who’s this’?”

“In the trial, he actually blew our minds away with his pace. He was lightning,” Morgan adds. “He went straight into our team, more or less. We won the Sigerson that season.”

The following year, Jack O’Connor drafted him into the Kerry senior training squad after the U-21s had been beaten by Cork. However, a familiar demon reared his head when his knees flared up again.

“I trained for the summer that year. I felt pretty good and maybe could’ve helped in ‘13, but I had a bad knee injury that time and I was out for six months with surgery, so I only trained for the summer in ‘13. I was never able to get the body right.

“I remember that semi-final against Dublin that Kerry played and being at that game and thinking, ‘Jesus, I’d love to be in there maybe helping the team’. We were so close. I really wanted to make an impact in ‘14. Trained really hard that winter going into it.

“You’re never thinking down the line. It’s great, I’m blessed. That was my third knee surgery at that stage, so I was thinking, ‘Right, my career here isn’t going to be hugely long’, so to be able to say, however many years on that, I’m still going, I’m very happy with that and I’m blessed and I definitely don’t take it for granted.”

It’s in that context he can enjoy his longevity. Saturday’s dance with Cork represents his 11th championship season with Kerry and 13th since he was first called in.

These last couple of seasons have been tricky. He didn’t start a championship game last year until the final, while he’s only made a handful of appearances this year.

Small little injuries, stuff that comes with the territory, he insists.

“Injury prevention is probably the most important skill in the game because if you stay on the training field at all, you’re just going to improve.

“You see some of the Premier League soccer players. I remember John O’Shea said something like that before with United, that he wasn’t the most talented or whatever in his age group, but he was just always on the field and always training. You see some fellas even now with the seniors who just can’t seem to get a clean run without injury. I’m lucky that I haven’t had too many other injuries, a few small issues with my hamstrings, but manageable.”

Cork again this weekend. O’Brien played in the Covid game when Mark Keane picked their pockets. One for the hurt locker.

“That was a very disappointing day. Such an unusual build-up with Covid at the time. I remember we ate in Ballyvourney GAA grounds and had to drive separately from there up to the match and we’d a Garda escort, but sure, there was lads getting lost on the way in and things.

“There was just an eerie feel about the whole thing with the weather. It was nearly biblical rain at times, but look, it was still a game we could nearly have won and we didn’t.

“Cork took their chances, they levelled it going into extra-time and won it again with the goal.

“That was the one year since I’ve been playing where it was a straight knock-out and we didn’t get the chance to rebound after it. Just a very disappointing day overall and not one I think about too much.

“A bizarre one, alright, for sure. Totally different to any other experience or any other defeat we had before. A tough game and definitely sticks with you a bit.”

He’s 33 now, a new father to baby Nolan and at a stage of life where he knows there’s more football behind him than ahead. Down the line, he admits he could be looking at a knee replacement, but that can all be put to one side. Kerry are on the hunt again; time to grab a spade and go to work.

“I don’t have to go through it [a knee replacement], but I wouldn’t change what I’ve achieved, what I’ve done in the past. And my father-in-law says he’d rather wear away than rust away, so it’s a good expression to keep in the back of the mind.”