Still calling the shots
Who would be the hurling equivalent of Gemma O’Connor? Tommy Walsh. For consistency, versatility, fearlessness, aggression and sheer mastery, he’s the nearest thing to her and she’s the nearest thing to him.
Ten years now Walsh is playing senior inter-county hurling and still he doesn’t know what it’s like to end a season without an All Star award. O’Connor is similarly accustomed to the red carpet treatment. For six consecutive years she was an All Star, an unprecedented streak in the history of camogie, and that run probably would have extended to eight had the scheme been in operation in her debut season of 2002.
Walsh has only known one September not playing an All-Ireland final. O’Connor had to wait until her ninth season to experience a September without preparing for an All-Ireland final. By the time she was 21 she’d already played in five senior finals.
And they’re both do-everything, play-anywhere type of players, certainly anywhere from five to 12.
Walsh has become such a dominant fixture in the Kilkenny half-back line, we can forget that he won his first All Star as a midfielder and his third in 2005 as a wing forward.
O’Connor’s most regular residence has been in midfield where she’s won four of her All Stars, but she’s also picked up gongs at wing back and wing forward while this summer she’s been the anchor of the Cork defence, sweeping and dominating all around her from centre back.
Looking at their respective careers, the late Sid Waddell’s famous line about Eric Bristow inevitably comes to mind. “When Alexander the Great of Macedonia was 33 he cried salt tears because there were no more worlds to conquer…. O’Connor’s only 27!”
The last thing she is though is bored. For there are still worlds or at least All-Irelands to conquer, probably because she entered this season coming off a second consecutive year not having played into September. Last season was a nadir for her and Cork. It wasn’t so much that they didn’t reach an All Ireland final, more that they didn’t deserve to reach one.
“Through the years when we were continuously winning, there was always an appreciation that our run couldn’t last forever.
“Like in 2010 when we finally didn’t reach the All-Ireland, I didn’t begrudge the situation, there was an acceptance that our luck had to run out some time. It’s a lot easier to accept losing if you really and truly gave it 100%. You can’t fault anyone that way.
“But last year we couldn’t say that. We were way off the mark.
“The whole thing wasn’t right from the get go. We didn’t have the hurling behind us, we didn’t have the right attitude, both players and management. And when people start to crib and moan that has a knock-on effect. People get demotivated and deflated. Without saying too much, there was no cohesiveness there. It just wasn’t going to work from day one.
“If we had qualified for the All-Ireland, to be honest I don’t think we’d have deserved it. About the only upside was that we only lost to [eventual champions] Wexford in that semi-final by five points. There was a realisation that if we got things sorted out, things could be a lot different.”
This year there’s a new setup, one that’s challenged the players and facilitated high performance. O’Connor’s fellow St Finbarr’s clubman, Paudie Murray, replaced Joe O’Brien as team coach and brought in a completely new backroom team, including renowned performance coach Caroline Currid who has previously helped the Tyrone and Dublin footballers as well as the Tipperary hurlers to All-Ireland success.
“I think this year we’ve got it right. We spelt out clearly from the start of the year what was expected of people, be that what management expected of the players and what players expected from management. I think people have a lot more respect for one another now, everything is out in the open, rather than people whispering about the elephant sitting in the corner of the room.
“There’s a good dynamic there. I know that there have been some years even when we were winning where you’d have little cliques but this is the first season in years that we feel like a really close-knit group. There’s already a lot of All-Ireland medals in our dressing room but no one really dwells on that. What’s been driving us is the disappointment of underachieving the last year or two.”
O’Connor more than anyone appreciates the importance of having a sense and togetherness among a group. Ever since she left school she’s been a member of the defence forces and has come to know that any hint of discord can have deadly consequences.
So far, mind, her job has been more peacekeeping than life threatening, but she’s still seen a lot. She was 19 when she had her first tour of Liberia. The first thing that struck her was the stifling heat but that was before she’d seen the orphanages and the child soldiers, and the communities devastated by HIV and poverty. All the while though she observed a real dignity at work, among the locals and by the Irish soldiers she soldiered with.
“They have absolutely nothing over there. Well, the people don’t. The country has plenty of resources such as iron ore and gold and silver and diamonds but because of all the exploitation and corruption, the poverty among the general population is rampant.
“A lot of the kids there if you were to ask them one thing they’d like to do they’d all say it’s to go to school. The Irish have a very good reputation out there for being kind and humane and our forces there try to help out as much as they can, in terms of food and clothing.”
She still keeps an eye out for developments in that country. She followed Charles Hughes’ trial in the Hague earlier this year when the former warlord was sentenced to 50 years imprisonment, and monitors events in Chad, another country where she’s served.
At the moment in the army there’s been a severe reduction in the number of missions abroad. There’s even a cloud hanging over the future of her regiment in Collins Barracks where she serves as a corporal. For all that uncertainty though, she loves the army life: the training, the camaraderie, the constant upskilling and particularly how supportive the authorities have been in facilitating her inter-county career.
For as long as she can remember she’s wanted to play for Cork. Her mother Geraldine played for Glen Rovers and her uncle Bill Geaney captained Cork to the 1974 All-Ireland minor title and won another All Ireland at U21 level.
And from the moment she went up to Croke Park in her pre-teens to see Linda Mellerick, Denise Cronin, Fiona O’Driscoll and Sandy Fitzgibbon win an All-Ireland, her dream and goal was to win one as well.
As it turned out she’d either play with or be coached by all of those figureheads. O’Driscoll has been both a team-mate and a coach to her. As far as she’s concerned, O’Connor is one of the greatest players of all time.
“Gemma has the full array of skills. Her striking would be the number one thing that stands out. She’s one of the longest strikers of the ball in the game. Then there’s her stickwork and her athleticism. I suppose with her army training her fitness levels are extremely high.
“She’d train at 100 miles per hour all the time. It doesn’t matter if it’s a sprint or a game of backs and forwards; you’ll find Gemma pushing it on at match-like intensity and not being shy to encourage others to do the same.
“And above all she has a great big-game temperament. She rarely has an off-day in a Cork jersey. In her earlier days sometimes her competitive nature could maybe mean she could get slightly sidetracked if someone was trying to rattle her, but nothing gets in her way or distracts her now.”
So often when Cork have needed leadership O’Connor has been the one to provide it. The 2005 All-Ireland final was a classic case in point. At half-time Cork trailed by five points to Tipperary and were staring at a third consecutive September defeat to their old rivals.
It was O’Connor though that ignited the rebellion with two consecutive points upon the resumption. She would end up with four, the margin of Cork’s victory.
Back then Tipp were their nemesis. Now it’s Wexford. The Leinster champions are closing in on a third All-Ireland on the trot and their fourth All Ireland in six seasons, the kind of dominance O’Connor and Cork would take exception to happening on their beat. Cork did beat them in this year’s league final for O’Connor to claim her fourth league medal but it’s a sixth Celtic Cross that’s she been eyeing all season.
“We knew alright when we played them in 2007 in the All-Ireland final that they were going to be around for some time.
“They had a different kind of dynamic about them, they were a very physical and united group of players. For years we had set the bar but we realised then that there was another standard with Wexford. They’ve raised it again since. We’ll find out now if we’ve matched it.”
Tomorrow the battle will commence. O’Connor wouldn’t be anywhere else. It’s what and where she’s supposed to be at in September.
