Seánie McGrath: Ben O'Connor's traits have come to the fore during Cork's winning run
FIGHTING SPIRIT: Cork manager Ben O'Connor celebrates. Pic: Seb Daly/Sportsfile.
Every man and his child up and down the country knows this Cork team is sprinkled with incredible ability and incredible hurlers.
But I just felt from early doors this year, and from listening to Ben’s interviews, that there was a necessity for other traits to be present and to be shown. From that perspective, the three games in Munster couldn’t have gone better for Cork and for what the manager is after.
As Ben himself keeps pointing out, it's a results business. It’s about putting points on the board. But how they’ve gone about accumulating those points will have really, really pleased him.
Look at Waterford this week as the perfect counter-example. Despite showing up in their three games, including a draw against the All-Ireland champions and nearly taking something off the beaten All-Ireland finalists, they are as good as out.
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Whereas Cork, without really cutting loose at any stage in the championship or performing to the extent we know they can, have won three games in the round-robin for the first time since 2018, are qualified with a game to spare, and look set to make the Munster final.
The Limerick game was incredibly close, and you’re obviously standing opposite a generational team there. The Tipp game, even though they were comfortable at stages and were better than the finishing margin suggested, you still had some wounds and aftereffects from last July and you were still playing the All-Ireland champions.
And then Saturday I felt was very much a 50-50 game, even 55-45 in favour of the hosts. Waterford had performed very well in spells in their previous two games, their summer was on the line, while Cork, with a rejigged defence, were going into a compact county ground that just doesn't suit the free-flowing style of the Cork forwards and the space they like to have.
Here is where those other traits came to the fore.
There was fierce heart on Saturday night at Walsh Park. 0-18 to 0-15 down in the second half, in a bit of trouble, and the play going for Waterford, they showed fantastic maturity to get the result.
Same as against Limerick, they manned up in a difficult situation. They brought the required effort. And when it was really called for, their decision-making and composure were spot on.
Take even the decision to change penalty-takers. I would see that as a very good sign that there isn't any ego existing within the camp because, you know, egos can be dangerous.
Alan Connolly was very gracious in Mark Coleman taking over and, irrespective of whether the call came from the line or the players themselves, it gave evidence that there's a real maturity in the group. From general play too, there was a complete unselfishness in Cork’s score-taking. It was all about the collective, rather than individuals running up their own tallies.
All those traits of manning up, maturity, heart, and manic work-rate, they are not necessarily coachable, but you can set examples, and you can have messages within your camp that instills in players that these are just non-negotiables.
And that’s not to say that any of the previous managers didn't do that, but Ben has put a ferocious emphasis on those traits, and he did it from early doors. He made clear that they’d be non-negotiables on any team of his.
That those characteristics were there in abundance across the three wins has to be the most encouraging takeaway for Ben in Cork's championship campaign thus far.
Other reasons for the boss to be happy has to be the ferocious competition among his players to make the matchday 26, never mind the first 15.
Hugh O’Connor, on his full championship debut, did OK. Alan Walsh did alright when he came on against Tipp. William Buckley has continued on from his brilliant debut in Thurles. And it was absolutely fantastic to see Paudie Power back after a horrendous year with injuries. Hopefully he can build from here.
All those lads are newcomers, but all looked so comfortable when thrown in. None of them look out of place.
Other bits and pieces from Saturday: Patrick Collins, when needed, made two top-class saves. Darragh Fitz and Shane Barrett, when needed, rolled the sleeves up and popped up with crucial scores. Both came good at just the right time.
An overall scoring efficiency of 65% mightn’t seem anything hectic, but when you consider they got off as high a number as 42 shots, the overall return was really good.
And then, just a special word on Brian Hayes. While contributing in different ways against Tipp and Limerick, his bottom line across the two games was 0-3.
From the off on Saturday, there was almost a manicness to his play. He looked a class above everyone else on the field. His skillset has developed to such an extent that on the night it was hard to tell which hand was his weak hand and which was his stronger hand.
At one stage in the first half, he got a chance to settle himself, balance his feet, and then strike. Normally in that instance you would strike off your stronger hand, but he actually struck off the same angle that his body was at, which was leaning him towards his left side.
You were thinking, ‘Jesus, has he got a bad hand?’ I KNOW they are not technically gone and there’s a collection of results that could yet save them, but your heart would go out to Waterford that their summer effectively ended on May 9.
Going back to my own days, Waterford lost their first-round Munster games in 1997 and 2000, but given those matches were played on May 25 and 28, they could argue they were actually getting a longer season together, even if they were getting less games.
If you lose three games, you probably have to go, but it still feels a little bit off that the team that got a draw against the champions and brought last year's finalists right down to the wire are as good as out.
This column isn't about solutions, but could there be more of a gap between the round-robin games? Is it too congested?
Not that they’ll want a Cork man’s sympathy, but I just feel sorry for Waterford because they contributed to three really engrossing games, brought savage energy again on Saturday evening, even after being hit with hammer blow after hammer blow of injury, and yet the cut-throat nature of the current format means their summer fate has been decided little over a week into May.
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