Up until a week or so ago, Mickey Harte’s men were in all sorts of bother, scrambling for form having lost three championship fixtures back-to-back.
Now, though, following wins over Westmeath and Mayo, the National League champions represent a potentially potent force once again, and a threat to the unbeaten Kingdom’s All-Ireland ambitions.
“I see it as probably the hardest draw we could have got, because at this point in time I think Derry are a really dangerous team,” O’Connor confirmed.
“They were written off maybe a month ago. They were in a hole and they dug themselves out of the hole and they got a huge win away from home in Mayo, which is never an easy place to go, as we know.
“And a team like that, who rebound after a period like that, are a highly dangerous team.
“So we’re expecting a massive battle the next day.”
Despite an improvement in their recent form, Derry’s championship has so far failed to match their National League campaign. For his part, however, O’Connor isn’t buying into any narrative that Derry might not be what they once were.
“We’re expecting the Derry who we met last year, who put us to the pin of our collar,” he stressed.
“That’s the Derry we’ll be preparing for and we’re expecting. You have to remember there was no massive mystery there as to why Derry were struggling there for a month or six weeks. They were down an awful lot of good players.
“They were down players like [Gareth] McKinless, Conor Doherty, Eoin McEvoy, they were down a good share of players. You take four or five important players out of any team and they’re going to struggle a bit.
“Plus they were going very hard at it in the league and there was a period there where maybe that told against them, but we consider them a highly dangerous team, particularly a team that were struggling and came through their struggles, have all their important players back and have got a huge away win . . . that’s a dangerous animal in our estimation.”
The one potential fly in the ointment for Derry is that they’ll be in action for a third consecutive weekend, which could be enough to tilt the tie Kerry’s way.
“That remains to be seen,” O’Connor warns. “There’s for and against that. It depends which way the games goes. You only feel that tiredness if the game is going against you and you’re struggling a bit. If the game is going for you and you have momentum you just ride the crest of a wave like they had the last day coming out of Castlebar.
“That depends on the way the game goes. You only feel tiredness when you’re struggling in the actual game. That’s the way to answer that. It depends on which way the game is going.
“Momentum can be a great thing and tiredness a lot of times is mental. Eight days is plenty of time for anyone to recover from a game, I don’t care what anyone says with the modern sports science and the modern recovery, eight days is loads.
“Soccer players recover in three days and play games of high intensity so I wouldn’t think that’s a big issue.
“They got a lot from that win in Castlebar and that can make up for any perceived tiredness in my estimation.”
There’s been plenty of comment since the draw was made that this was precisely the test the Kingdom wanted and needed. That Derry will provide a necessary ‘gut-check’ ahead of any potential semi-finals or finals.
“I’m slow to go down that road I’ll be honest with you, because then you’re not taking it game by game, you know?” O’Connor said.
“I never look beyond, I never look to the end of the road. I look at the next step on the road and what I look for is incremental improvement and we feel that we came through the group stages pretty OK.
“We played three games and we were happy with the performance in probably a game and a half out of the three. First half against Monaghan, very happy with that.
“Happy with the game against Louth. Not happy with the game against Meath, we were flat. I don’t look to the end of the road. I’m just looking at each step in the road and whatever you say about tests of whatever I’m just looking to get over the next day and we’ll take the next day as they come.
“The way I’d say it is we played three games in the group, Monaghan, Meath and Louth, and from a psychological point of view it wasn’t easy for the players because they were in a no-win situation.
“If they hammered the opposition then the opposition are useless and if you don’t hammer the opposition then Kerry are useless, that’s the way it’s being portrayed whether you like it or not. Mainly by you fellas [the press] with some notable exceptions!
“At least this is a game that everybody knows that Derry are the real deal. If they reproduce the form that they showed last year and the form that they showed in the league this year then it’s a game to get the juices flowing certainly. I’d agree with that.”
On the injury front, O’Connor confirmed that his fellow Dromid man Graham O’Sullivan is back training, but stopped short of confirming he’ll feature in headquarters on Sunday afternoon.
“He’s back doing a bit of training so we have another couple of sessions to go this week and I’m very slow to give updates on bills of health until the training is over, because you won’t be holding back this week, you can’t hold fellas in cotton wool,” he commented.
“There will be a proper training session tonight [Tuesday] and another Thursday night so we’ll know more after that. Touch wood because you’d be holding your breath during every training session because there’s plenty of contact in them so hopefully we get through these two sessions and have a full group to pick from on Thursday night.”
