 On 20 September 2009, he managed Kerry to win their 36th All-Ireland Senior Football title with a four-point win over Cork in Croke Park.Despite being written off by many of the games experts O'Connor's men proved their worth first with a stunning quarter-final victory over Dublin and from that point on never looked back and went on to beat Meath in the semi-final before claiming the title against Cork.O'Connor said 'There is a lot of satisfaction in this, we were being written off by many experts".