St Finbarr's Alan O'Connor: Our intention is to go out and win the county every year

Alan O’Connor has been around the block long enough to know how it rolls when it comes to winning county titles.

The experienced St Finbarr’s defender helped his team win the McCarthy Insurance Group Premier SFC last season, which was his third time winning it.

The city side ended a four-year wait in 2025 to get their hands on the Andy Scannell trophy after what had been a frustrating period up to then.

“We feel we have quality in the team and every year it’s our intention to go out and win the county,” he says.

“Relief is probably a big part of how I feel reflecting on the success. We certainly felt as though we probably had a bit more in us in terms of we felt we left it after us in 2022 and maybe underperformed in the following years. So I think getting over the line was a big thing for us last year.

“But look, I think you kind of have to curtail that relief as well and be in the moment with it being just an unbelievable achievement. This doesn’t happen all the time. Getting there is very, very hard.

“Getting over the line is even harder when you come up against quality opponents. Everyone had the same message, look, the quality is there, we just haven’t been able to put in the performances on a consistent basis. Our intent last year was to show the quality that we have and kind of right those wrongs in fairness as well.

“We won the league and the championship, but I think if you look at some of the games, we weren’t playing to our ability.” 

The majority of people would pinpoint St Finbarr’s win over Castlehaven in the quarter-final of the championship as a key turning point in the Barrs campaign.

For O’Connor, it was the game before it, the last group match.

“It was the Carrigaline game, third group game, we were able to put in a very good performance,” the defender said.

“Certainly I thought that started our season. It was an unbelievable thing to see everyone on the same page, everyone knew their jobs. It was a top performance that we had strived for and it clicked that day.

“Up to that point, we hadn’t played great against Clonakilty and Carbery Rangers. We wanted to put down a marker. This is kind of the performance that we want. This is how we want our forwards, our midfielders and our backs to behave.” 

St Finbarr’s campaign snowballed from that juncture as they reached the county final where they came up against near neighbours Nemo Rangers.

The Barrs had never beaten their rivals in a final before, that would change when hero Cillian Myers-Murray kicked the winner to win the decider by a point.

“We went into that Nemo game knowing that if we can put a performance together, we can do it. I think that game is the best example I can give of the quality and the impact we’ve had off the bench.

“Cillian Myers-Murray landing the winner on the biggest stage. It’s a county final against Nemo, a chance to make history for your club is unbelievable.

“It’s just fantastic to win the county. I certainly remember there were years when we were coming back in the backdoor and we just weren’t playing great ball.

“So I think we really need to maximise the value of having a very strong panel and we have great young players coming through at the moment as well. We just have to capitalise on it as much as we can.” 

St Finbarr’s will face Carrigaline, Mallow and Douglas in their championship group starting in July. Before that, they will also defend the McCarthy Insurance Group Division 1 Football League title.

They welcome Knocknagree to Togher for their opener on Sunday, March 1 at 11.30am.

“We’re hungry to get back to the levels that we were at last year. For us, we know what it takes to get there. We know how hard it is.

“We know the quality that’s out there and we just have to focus on what we can control within our dressing room. I don’t think we operate with that kind of mindset that there’s a target on our back. I think for us, we have standards that we need to hit.”