Saturday, November 28, 2009
JERRY O’CONNOR isn’t long in handing out credit for Newtownshandrum’s sparkling form this year.
"The difference (trainers) Cian O’Neill and Willie McCormack have made is unbelievable – even just having a fresh voice. There’s a bit of bluffing going on around the place in clubs over teams who mightn’t have a great idea of what they’re doing, but with these lads everything is done for a reason.
"If the lads say we’ll be training for an hour and a half we’ll be there for an hour and a half. It’s top class. Everyone gets stuck in but we’d be around long enough to know when you need to ease off a bit.
"As one of the lads said after the county final, we’re never tired coming off the field after training. That says a lot for the lads involved. There’s no slog and that makes a big difference."
It’s helped keep the older lads fresh enough to help out the newcomers.
"We’d probably be seen as an ageing team but the average age is 24
"Our standards had slipped a bit but then some of the younger lads are only 20 years of age, and you can’t expect them to step up to win county titles at 18, 19, so it took them a couple of years to step up to the level."
"Sweet" is his description of this season’s county title.
"Your first is the best, but this was sweet because we’d been written off at every stage.
"With no disrespect to Sars, it was over with quarter of an hour to go and it was great to bring on a few subs as well.
"Don’t pick this up the wrong way, but Cork getting knocked out early helped us in a huge way – we got a chance to train with the lads and to play challenge games together.
"Fellas might say ‘they’re your clubmates and you know them’, but you must be playing with them constantly."
He’s frank about the approach taken by some opponents.
"In a way we prefer playing outside teams. Most teams in Cork set up defensively against us with seven backs, which I can’t understand. It’s a case of ‘we’ll stop ye from scoring and hope we’ll get enough scores ourselves’. With outside teams you’d have a better game. We played Ballygunner in a challenge and they impressed me, and then you’ve the Ger Cunningham factor. He’s cute as a fox and is very cool, he knows us inside out and he won’t panic if he has to make changes. We’ll just have to try that bit harder and come up with something new.
"They’re not unlike us, they have a few old stagers and a lot of young players. We’d be happy to play ball against anyone and they’d be the same, that’s how they’ve trained.
"It was a good thing we played Ballygunner, because the younger lads have seen now how good they are, even if we’re made favourites for the game."
He’s looking forward to next year with Cork – but Newtown are never far from O’Connor’s thoughts: "We’re keeping in touch with the Cork lads – give Denis (Walsh) and his crew a proper pre-season and Cork won’t be too far off it. If there are players out there to be found, they’ll find them. It’d be nice for some of our own lads to get a call up. That’s the kind of carrot that’s there if they play well in the Munster final."
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