William O'Connor's coaching journey has taken him to the top flight

William O’Connor might seem understated, but the Buncrana man’s stock continues to rise.

O’Connor was coach of the UCD team that won promotion to the SSE Airtricity League Premier Division thanks to a 2-1 win over Waterford on Friday.

O’Connor, a former USL winning centre-back as a player with Cockhill Celtic, has already amassed an impressive CV in spite of his coaching career being in its infancy.

The now Dublin-based O’Connor was head-hunted by UCD in April and he was celebrating a return to the top flight with the Students on Friday night.

He spent five years as a coach at Finn Harps after being brought in by Ollie Horgan, who he also worked with at the Republic of Ireland Schoolboys team.

Three of those seasons were in the Premier Division so the Balbriggan Community School woodwork teacher is well versed in the waters he’s returning to.

“It’s great for UCD to get back into the top tier,” he said. “That’s the goal for every team, to be in the Premier Division.

“From a coaches point of view, it’s the same as a player, you want to be at the top level. We’ll be playing some big teams and will have some big challenges. But those are the challenges you want, to come up with new ideas and plans to compete with them.”

Last year, O’Connor was named as the manager of Shelbourne Under-19s, but when Andy Myler called this spring, he jumped at the chance.

“After being at Harps, I probably needed to go and try my own ideas somewhere and the under-19s was the next stage,” he said. “UCD contacted me and the opportunity to get back into senior football swung it - that’s where everyone wants to be. It was an opportunity that was just too hard to turn down.

“Andy was very open to different ideas and I felt that it was a good move.”

O’Connor completed his Uefa Pro Licence in 2020 and has made a rapid ascent up the ladder.

“You’re learning and picking up new ideas all the time,” he said. “When you do these courses and go to different clubs to see different people and different styles, you always pick out of that. You try to see as many different people and take wee bits out of them all to piece together your own puzzle.”

O’Connor, when the playing personnel permits, likes his teams to play in the build-up using an ‘attractive style and use an aggressive press when out of possession.

Managing and coaching are now entirely different fields and he’s content for now to continue his learning.

“I never really look too far ahead,” he said. I did the Uefa B Licence to see how I’d get on, then when I went to senior I did the A Licence. The hardest bit of the Pro Licence is almost getting onto it.

“I was managing the Irish Schools team and coaching at Finn Harps so that was the best time to do it.”

O’Connor and Finn Harps assistant manager Paul Hegarty did the Pro Licence at the same time as Damien Duff, Robbie Keane, Andy Reid and Keith Andrews.

The highlight of the experience was the club visit to Celtic.

“We had three days of full access at Celtic,” O’Connor said. “You were standing there looking at how one of the top professional clubs is run from top to bottom. The League of Ireland is professional but that top level is just a different world.

“You could see how they were coaching the sessions and preparing for a game, using all of the week to prepare with reality-based training. We got to go to Uefa at the time, too, which was brilliant.

It all began when he was still in his late teens and O’Connor managed a Cockhill Celtic under-16 team.

Soon, he was overseeing Cockhill’s coaching structure before Dermot O’Brien brought him into the Inishowen Academy, where he spent seven years. Having managed the school team in Buncrana, he took over the Republic of Ireland Schools team in 2018, winning the Centenary Shield in 2018.

He said: “It was a great honour to manage Ireland. It was a really good standard at a good level. You were more or less drawing the players from the Under-19 League of Ireland so the standard was top.

“I’ve been heavily involved in coaching since I was at Cockhill. I enjoy the challenge of it. I’m football mad.”

Horgan took a punt on a novice coach when he recruited O’Connor as first team coach - something the Buncrana man will be forever indebted to the Harps boss for.

“Ollie has been the most influential coach in my career,” O’Connor said.

“He took me out of coaching local football and took me into the League of Ireland. He was very good to give me that opportunity. It can be hard to get into the League of Ireland for someone who hasn’t played at that level.

“Ollie gave me an opportunity that not any others would. The biggest thing I saw from working with Ollie was how to prepare a team for games week-in week-out.

“Ollie works hard, puts in the hours and travels s much. It’s all day every day. I really don’t think people understands what he does. He could pop up anywhere. He was at a UCD Saturday Morning League game a few weeks ago. You could get him at a match anywhere.

“From now until February, Ollie will be the busiest man in Ireland. You can see that work rubbing off on Harps, they are improving year on year.”

Carndonagh’s Sam Todd, Letterkenny man Michael Gallagher and Jack Keaney - the UCD captain - from Donegal town were all part of the squad this year.

O’Connor said: “Sam has been absolutely fantastic. He was very unlucky, to be kind about it, not to make the PFAI First Division Team of the Year. He has real experience that maybe UCD were lacking at times. Sam had 100 games played between Derry and Finn Harps and he’s a great young fella. He has really improved and he has an unreal work rate.

“Micahel has had some injuries in the last couple of months, but he was very good in the play-off games and he’ll look to push on now. A good run of games will do him well. He was top class in the play-offs.

“Jack is a great leader, a brilliant lad. Over the last three months, I’d say he has played every game for us.

“UCD is a great set-up for any young player. Look through the League at the amount of players playing well who have come through UCD. It’s brilliant for a player to be sitting at 21 or 22 playing Premier Division football and having a Masters, or whatever course, behind them as well. The model is there and the model is good at UCD.”