When Jack O’Connor made the decision to shake-up his backroom team after last year’s All-Ireland semi-final loss to Armagh, he ran through his contacts and picked out James Costello.
Costello’s name didn’t ring many bells outside of Kerry football circles, but O’Connor knew what he was looking for. If Kerry needed to inject some freshness going into the 2025 season, Costello would know exactly where to start.
“It was just like that, I just got a phone call from Jack and [he] asked me to be involved,” Costello recalls. “You don’t get asked too often so you take it when it comes.”
From the St Pat’s Blennerville club just outside Tralee, Costello was the Kerry minor football manager for four seasons, from 2019 to 2022, succeeding Peter Keane. Kerry lost the Covid-delayed All-Ireland final against Derry in 2020 by a point. He also spent last season as a Clare football selector and has been involved with various Kerry underage teams over the years.
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On Sunday, he will be an important member of O’Connor’s backroom team as Kerry go in search of a 39th All-Ireland Senior Football Championship. Donegal stand in their way.
“I suppose it’s like any field, you want to progress as far as you can,” says Costello of coming on board. “You want to see where you can get to with the thing, where the ceiling is of it. I was very lucky to get involved with Clare. I thought that was a great grounding. I really enjoyed it and it was a very good stepping stone.”
For O’Connor, Costello’s knowledge of underage football in Kerry neatly supplements the other new additions to his backroom team – former Kildare manager Cian O’Neill and former Kerry senior footballer Aodán Mac Gearailt.
O’Neill is no stranger to Kerry football. He previously worked alongside former manager Éamonn Fitzmaurice in a coaching capacity for three years, which included their 2014 All-Ireland final win over Donegal. Last year, O’Neill was with the Galway footballers and his experience also extends to the All-Ireland winning Tipperary hurlers in 2010, plus stints with the Limerick, Mayo and Cork footballers.
Once Costello started his new position, he quickly realised O’Connor’s modus operandi. The job of the intercounty manager is unrecognisable now compared to when O’Connor took the Kerry job in 2003 for the first of three stints. Delegating different responsibilities to the right people is now critical.
“Jack is very inclusive, he’s very good like that,” says Costello. “He likes to let people add their tuppence worth in and we have good debates and good ideas.
“Jack says himself, he’s a lot more hands-off than he was in the early days. We were learning as the rules were coming in and putting our heads together. So we spent a lot of time together, like most management teams did, but it was a big help in terms of gelling the management team, I felt.
“You get in and you do your bit. Players just want to learn, want to get better. We were lucky, I suppose, everyone was thrown in at the deep end with the new rules.”
Impressive midfielder Joe O’Connor is one of the Kerry players Costello was familiar with from his underage coaching. O’Connor was also a standout rugby player at underage level and was part of a successful Munster Under-18s team back in 2016. He endured a setback in 2022, tearing his cruciate weeks after Kerry’s All-Ireland SFC final victory against Galway.
“I thought he had the potential to be the best midfielder in the country,” says Costello. “But the big thing with Joe is just his dedication to work. He works really, really hard at the game and I think he’s found a way or a flow of playing this new game that’s working very well for him.
“He’s found a way of playing within the game – opportunities to tackle, opportunities to work and opportunities to attack. I’m sure he’s looking forward to the next day [against Donegal], but he has a big test ahead of him.”
Costello doesn’t need to think too hard about where the All-Ireland final is likely to be won and lost on Sunday.
“Your ability to milk your momentum, get your hands on ball and break the other team’s momentum is absolutely crucial.
“We’re probably the biggest exponents of it in both sides, really. If you can get a run on a team and get three or four kick-outs in a row and do real damage, it has a big bearing in the game. Because when the tide starts turning against you, it’s a lot more difficult now to turn it around than it used to be.”
