Angry Newtown boss spells it out and has ‘no sympathy’ for Ballygalget

AN angry Bernie O’Connor was in no humour for niceties after his side’s close-run All-Ireland Club Senior Hurling win yesterday over Ulster champions Ballygalget.

"I've no sympathy for them," said the Newtownshandrum manager.

"We won the game by a point, they deserve nothing. We came here to do a job, they came here to do a job, we came out the right side of it, no sympathy for them. And I don't mean that in a bad way. We got what we came for, had to struggle hard for it, hard luck on them, but that's the nature of the beast."

Bernie's anger wasn't directed at Ballygalget.

Since the draw was known, the plain-spoken Newtown boss had been preaching caution and respect for the Down champions to no avail, it seems, within his own dressing-room.

"The problem when you're not playing one of the so-called big teams, you get carried away on that f***ing hype, and that's what happened to us in the first-half. They knew in the dressing-room at half-time, they knew they had f***ed up; they came out in the second half and put it right, and that's all I can ask from them.

"I told you what we expected out of Ballygalget, and you'd expect it out of any 20 or 25 red-blooded men that are in an All-Ireland semi-final, that they would burst every bit of ground to try and get to the final. Are you telling me county boundaries decide whether you can hurl or not?

"County boundaries don't determine who can hurl. If Tom Kenny was born in Kerry, would that mean he couldn't hurl? No, it would not. If we didn't win today we weren't in the final, and I said that to them before they came out, listen to whatever else you like, but this a banana skin out here, don't slip on it."

At half time, Newtown were four points behind. What had Bernie said to them?

"Very simple ... They had two choices, be in the All-Ireland final this evening, or go home with their tails between their legs. They were all fit to beat each other inside, they knew how bad they were doing. They came out in the second half and put that right, that's all you can ask of any team.

"They came back, knuckled down to what they had to do, came up trumps, and that's all we can ask."

Impressive in the second half were Bernie's twin sons, Ben and Jerry. Ben scored five points from centre-forward and Jerry a brace from midfield. As usual from this pair, as explained by Ben, it was a case of no panic.

"We knew at half-time we hadn't got going.

"Normally we'd have been up four, would relax for a while, now we had to up it. In fairness to the lads, for the last 20 minutes they dug in, and at the final whistle we were still going, where they probably ran out of steam a small bit."