White hails 'The Chief' of the Kingdom

Victorious Kerry captain Gavin White has paid tribute to his manager Jack O'Connor and the backroom team, while detailing his own evolution as a player en route to lifting Sam Maguire at Croke Park on Sunday.

White was named the man of the match for his personal contribution in Kerry's emphatic 1-26 to 0-19 win over Donegal at HQ.

While the Dr Crokes clubman was winning a Celtic Cross for a second time, Sunday's win marked the fifth occasion O'Connor had led the Kingdom to an All-Ireland SFC crown in three spells in charge, with those earlier titles coming in 2004, 2006, 2009, 2022.

Held in both reverence and affection, White explained a newish sobriquet for the man in charge on RTÉ's The Sunday Game.

"The Chief, that's just a name we became accustomed to with Jack over the last couple of years," White revealed.

"When I was growing up, Jack would have been in charge of some unbelievable Kerry teams.

"He was involved with us in the 2014 and 2015 teams that won All-Ireland minors and he came back in with us in 2022 and drove us on again.

"He has been a credit to Kerry football and I know all the lads love him to bits.

"To come back after winning All-Irelands with previous teams, going back to minors and building up to winning an All-Ireland today and in 2022 is a credit to him."

Of the match itself and Kerry's gameplan, he added: "It was one of our targets at the start of the game to maybe make our mark in the first 10 minutes and use our experience that we've had in the last couple of years.

"Thankfully, we were able to do that. We aimed to do that at the start of the first half and the second half and it paid off."

White has dedicated himself this season to tailoring his game to the rules changes, with special emphasis on improving his role in winning breaking ball (something he did to remarkable effect at the start of both halves).

"I suppose like any player in the country, with the new rules that came in, you have to evolve your game to some degree, the kickouts being a huge part and breaking ball being key to primary possession – something that probably wouldn't have been one of my strengths in previous years, so it was obviously something I needed to target this year," he explained.

"It was a bit of a struggle when I came back after the club campaign but I gradually got to grips with it and thankfully it paid off on All-Ireland final day.

"We're very lucky with the coaching ticket that we have.

"I remember sitting down with Cian O'Neill in the Gleneagle Hotel a number of months ago and he set out his stall in what he expected of me for this year.

"I met him after the game and that was one of the first things he said to me.

"Every player evolves. The coaching we got right throughout the year was absolutely immense, right from Jack all the way down.

"But even the players themselves, they really notched it up another couple of gears, especially after that defeat in Tullamore [against Meath] and really expected a bit more from each other and drove on the performances and drove on training."

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