School’s still out for summer, and for Kerry forward Diarmuid O’Connor that also means managing some of the inevitable idle time before Sunday’s All-Ireland football final. Especially if he finds himself with too much time to think. A secondary school teacher at Gaelcholáiste Chiarraí in Tralee, O’Connor is preparing for his sixth final, including the draw and subsequent replay defeat to Dublin in his debut championship season with Kerry back in 2019. At 27, he’s more mature in his approach now, and a part of that is his understanding of the need to stop thinking about football all the time.“It’s definitely a benefit to have the time to yourself,” he says of the long summer holidays. “But I think you have to find things within that time to keep you occupied. Because if you sit down on the couch all day, start thinking too much about the game, there’s a lot of spare time there when you can overthink. “Sometimes with the boys who are working, they’re kind of in that routine anyways, in that it’s nothing they’re not used to. Whereas sometimes I find with teaching, when school finishes, you can kind of lose your routine a small bit. “You’d be so used to eating at the same times, and waking up at the same time, preparing for training, things like that. Whereas sometimes when you get your school holidays, you can kind of lose that routine, lose that bit of structure. “So I think it’s very important that you find things to keep you occupied as well. You try and eat at the same times you would do on a school day, use your spare time to recover and to switch off from training when you can. So you try and get out to Fenit for a swim, or meet lads for coffee. There’s a couple of teachers on the team as well, so it does make a difference to spend time together in that sense as well.”Diarmuid O’Connor with coach Cian O’Neill after the All-Ireland semi-final win over Tyrone. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho O’Connor does have some other distractions. His brother Enda, who was also briefly on the Kerry panel, is now working on the family farm in Ballygarry, just outside Tralee. There’s always need for a hand there too.“I think calling me a part-time farmer is very generous,” says O’Connor. “You tip away when you can at home when you’re asked, but you try and stay out of the work.”What is certain is that O’Connor spent the first three months of this year using his time extremely well, rehabbing after a shoulder operation he had last October. He’d played on for a few weeks before that with his club Na Gaeil, but the injury meant a stop-start championship for O’Connor last summer, drifting in and out of the starting team before coming on for the last 20 minutes of the All-Ireland final win over Donegal.He missed all of Kerry’s league campaign, but has since established his place at left half forward having previously been a midfielder.Diarmuid O’Connor in Killarney ahead of the All-Ireland final this weekend. Photograph: Bryan Keane/Inpho “It was the bones of six months,” he says of the lay-off. “I trained fully the Wednesday after the league final, and we were going off to camp then. We just decided that the training camp would have been a really good target, and I could set my stall then for the rest of the year.“It can be difficult at times. No matter what anyone says, you’re not on the field, you’re not training, and you’re not involved in those conversations on the field. You just have to understand that’s part of the process. And when you do get back in the group, you just have to make the most of it then. Take your chance when you are back on the field.“All you’ve to do is to look around our dressing room, and you’ll see fellas who’ve come back from serious injuries before, who’ve shown serious resilience. You take lessons from them. All you can do is put your head down, work hard, and hope that things work out. Thankfully, I managed to get back for the final last year and contribute something in the last 20 minutes.”O’Connor is now in his 11th season of continuous involvement with Kerry, as he was part of the back-to-back All-Ireland minor winning teams in 2016-17, playing under-20 in 2018, before joining the senior panel in 2019.[ In this All-Ireland final, it’s hard to see anything other than a Kerry winOpens in new window ]The new playing rules mean “playing in the middle eight are very similar, from [number] five to 12”, and especially when it comes to kickouts.“A lot of requirements are similar, you’re doing a lot of tracking, you’re doing a lot of tackling, and you’re trying to contribute to scores where you can. So those middle eight are doing a lot of the same jobs, with bits of nuances in between.”