Every time Jack O’Connor guides Kerry back to another All-Ireland football final it becomes easier to differentiate between his first. Every time it’s different too, and Sunday’s latest showdown against Mayo will bring its own unique challenges.It will be his ninth final as Kerry manager, starting with the win over Mayo in 2004, although O’Connor was involved well before that too, as a selector with Páidí Ó Sé when Kerry won the All-Ireland in 1997, and again in 2000.“Look, it’s night and day,” O’Connor says about how much things have changed. “Dara Ó Cinnéide was captain that first year, in 2004, and he was asking me how different it is now. At the time, I was doing most of the coaching and Pat Flanagan was doing the training. That was more or less it. I had two selectors – Ger O’Keeffe and Johnny Culloty. The backroom team was a lot smaller, the world seemed a bit simpler.“Now I have two teams, a team on the field, and a team off the field, so my role has changed. I’m more of an overseer, more of a kind of a director. Whereas at the time I was very hands on. The game itself has changed obviously – changed for the better, I think – in the last while.”His personal approach has evolved over the years too, O’Connor now believing one of the most critical components of any All-Ireland final is to ensure the players go in as fresh as possible.“Sometimes you have a tendency coming up to finals to overdo it, that you think you have to do extra. Sometimes that’s not the right thing to do. So I think freshness is key, because All-Ireland finals take a lot of emotional energy out of you.“And if you have players tired going into an All-Ireland final, you’re in trouble. They need to be fresh, they need to be energetic. So if anything, you have to pull back a bit and make sure freshness is key. That’s it in my book.”Football’s new rules have also dramatically changed the way All-Ireland finals are played, even since Kerry’s 2022 win, and only for the better: “I never thought that game was designed for the likes of David Clifford and Kobe McDonald, and these fellas having to chase back the field to their own 14-yard line. The way the game was before, where half backs were doing most of the scoring, and inside forwards were like an extinct species.Jack O'Connor celebrates Kerry's victory over Mayo in the 2004 All-Ireland football final. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/INPHO “You look at the scoring now, and you look at the Mayo inside forward line that get a huge proportion of the scoring, as are our inside forwards. That’s the way the game was designed. So the game was turned on its head.”O’Connor also has high praise for what McDonald has brought to Mayo’s game this season. The 18-year-old is set to play his first final in Croke Park, and depending on how his Australian Rules sojourn works out, possibly his last.“Kobe McDonald is the nearest we’ve seen to David Clifford. He’s the Mayo version of David Clifford. You’ll remember all the hype about David, when he started off with Kerry, after his exploits underage.“They’ve really latched on to this team, the Mayo followers, they’ve given them great hope. Their manager [Andy Moran] has backed youth and they’ve backed him. That’s a potent mix.”At the age of 65, O’Connor has also placed greater importance on keeping himself fresh: “And I try to stay fit, if I can. I kind of mind my energy by having a good routine. I’m an early riser, get up very early and I head off with the dog, do my thinking early in the morning.“The fact that I’m retired is a massive help. I was trying to do this job 22 years ago when I was working full-time, and it was tough going at the time, trying to do all the coaching, all the planning and whatever.”He admits, too, that keeping players fresh, and peaking for an All-Ireland final, is not an exact science. He was a little worried, but never panicked, when Donegal took them apart in the league final back on March 29th, and again in the championship on May 23rd.“I was worried about the fact that they beat the daylights out of us. But I felt that they were going awfully well very early. I know from down through the years that it’s all about timing, and you’d have to say that both Kerry and Mayo are kind of coming pretty right at a good time.”Jack O’Connor’s All-Ireland final recordWins in 2004 (Mayo), 2006 (Mayo), 2009 (Cork), 2022 (Galway) and 2025 (Donegal)Defeats in 2005 (Tyrone), 2011 (Dublin), and 2023 (Dublin).