Cillian O’Connor gets the ending he deserved to one of the greatest careers in GAA history

You have to hand it to the lads on Reservoir Dubs – they were never going to let Cillian O’Connor sail off into the sunset without launching some cannon fire over his head. His retirement was always going to be a triggering event to one or two denizens of the Dublin GAA supporters’ online forum. In fairness, they were pretty balanced in their tributes. They made sure to send a few scuds in Aidan O’Shea’s direction too.“Must have saw the writing on the wall…” “Got his medal as a panellist…” “Elbows O’Connor…” “Never had the guts to take the hits to get the crucial scores…” “Big Aido will probably keep going... Will play the odd league game and then phased out again…” Now, some will say that’s small and petty. Not just of them but of us too. That an appreciation of Gaelic football’s all-time leading scorer deserves better than to be giving airtime to fellas still fighting the last decade’s wars deep into 2026. But to ignore them would be to ignore a fundamental truth about one of the all-time greats of the game.Namely, that in the years that Jim Gavin’s Dubs rolled across the championship plains like Panzer tanks, nobody was a bigger pain in their ass than Cillian O’Connor. This was very important – and not just for Mayo. At a time when other teams all but laid their coats down over puddles so Jack and Con and Mannion wouldn’t get their feet wet, O’Connor typified Mayo’s refusal to play nice and usher them up the Hogan Stand steps.READ MOREHe did so in two distinct and crucial ways. One, by putting more goals and points on the scoreboard than anybody else, ever. As Rob Carroll, of the brilliant Gaelic Stats website has pointed out, O’Connor is by a distance the highest scorer in championship matches against Dublin this century. He has scored more against Dublin (2-65 in 11 matches) than David Clifford and Colm Cooper combined (3-48 in 12 matches). Cillian O'Connor of Mayo against Roscommon in 2017. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho And two, by being the sort of cranky, belligerent antagonist that the Dubs just didn’t come across most of the time. For all his forensic coolness when tasked with putting the ball between the posts, O’Connor was chippy as hell and never shied away from the darker alleys of the game. He could have spent his time diligently accumulating scores and leaving the rough stuff to the bigger horses out the pitch. That was never him.He retires 98 points clear of Michael Murphy at the top of the all-time scoring charts, having run up a monumental 32-364 (460 points). All things being equal, David Clifford (29-272, or 359) will likely pass him in the next couple of seasons and you’d back Seán O’Shea (7-261, or 282) to make his way up towards O’Connor’s total around the turn of the decade. But everyone else is a mile back the road and even in a world of two-pointers (and potentially four-point goals), the wider peloton has a lot of climbing to do before they can see him on the horizon.The gas thing is it could have been more. O’Connor kicked precisely one two-pointer in intercounty football and it came in this year’s league when he was brought on as a sub against Roscommon. More to the point, the vast majority of his championship scoring was done long before he finally called it a day. Mayo's Cillian O'Connor scores a goal against Meath. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho He has scored just 2-27 since the 2020 All-Ireland final. Incredibly, his last championship score from a free came in the 2022 All-Ireland quarter-final against Kerry. If you want to really break it down, around 93 per cent of his total scores for Mayo came before his 29th birthday. Imagine where his numbers would be had he stayed healthy.[ For the average GAA player, this time of the year brings a mix of regret and reliefOpens in new window ]But your story can only be what it can only be. Had O’Connor been fit and firing through the back end of his career, what would have happened to Ryan O’Donoghue’s development? A couple of days after O’Connor did his Achilles against Clare in the league in 2021, O’Donoghue went to James Horan and touted for the role of team free-taker. He was only in his second season on the panel and the likes of Conor Loftus had deputised for O’Connor in the past. But O’Donoghue grabbed the job and made it his.Five years later, look what happened. O’Donoghue, himself a fairly spiky and bellicose individual, driven by his own All-Ireland final heartache, led Mayo to the All-Ireland O’Connor and his generation had lived and died for. Anyone who met O’Connor that day in Croke Park or in the weeks and months since were left in no doubt that missing out on being on the pitch didn’t lessen his enjoyment one jot. He earned his All-Ireland medal. Mayo's Diarmuid O'Connor and Cillian O'Connor lift the Sam Maguire. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho Aidan O’Shea made an acute observation in the hotel the day after Mayo won, something to the effect that anytime RTÉ showed an end-of-season montage, there was always a shot of himself or O’Connor, down on their knees or in tears. That’s all gone now. Six weeks later, O’Connor got married in Mount Juliet and had to find room in the table plan for Sam Maguire. A fitting grace note to one of the greatest careers in the history of the GAA.