Eyes on the prize

In his usual understated way, midfielder Jerry O'Connor has become a critical cog in Cork's drive to a second All-Ireland final. Diarmuid O'Flynn reports.

ON THE evening that Cork beat Clare to qualify for Sunday's All-Ireland hurling final, I visited friends in Dublin.

On the TV, as we were discussing the ups and downs of the game, Phil Mickelson was coming down the stretch in the final round of the US PGA. We were half-watching Phil, volume turned down, as he produced a magical flop-shot to tie down a second major success. Then the camera zoomed in on his face, really tight, close up.

"Look at him," I blurted, "the eyes. Now that's focus."

They were huge, not quite Marty Feldman, but magnified well beyond the norm, oblivious to everything but the flight of his ball.

Caroline chipped in. She hadn't been at the Cork/Clare match, she'd watched it on television. As the pressure came on Cork in the second half, Clare building up a substantial lead, both the O'Connor twins, Ben and Jerry, had discarded their helmets, and had taken over the running of the game. Coolly, point by point, Cork pulled back the lead. And RTÉ followed every puck of the ball, every step the two boys took, zoomed in time and again on Jerry, on Ben. And you know what Caroline had noticed? "Their eyes were exactly the same as Mickelson's in that shot."

Focused. It has ever been thus, for these extraordinary brothers from Newtownshandrum, on the north Cork/south Limerick border.

Lots of youngsters from that parish have the natural born talent for hurling, a religion in the area. They have the physical tools and the environment. But few, if any, have the drive, the single-minded focus, of these two. Since they could walk, that game has been their destiny - Croke Park, All-Ireland championship final rounds.

It has, however, taken a few years more than most of those who had followed their development up through the underage ranks in Newtown had anticipated. Ben came through in 1999, a fantastic year for Cork with Jimmy Barry-Murphy's tyros bursting through a year ahead of schedule to win an improbable All-Ireland.

Jerry was only on the periphery of that side, didn't make the final panel cut. Indeed in a lovely little cameo, later that night, he eased past bouncer and barrier at the Cork Burlington victory bash, after Ben handed out his official Cork blazer to his waiting twin. The four years that followed should have seen Jerry force his way to a regular place on the starting fifteen, and should have seen Cork add to that premature All-Ireland title, but it didn't happen.

Successive managements didn't see in the Newtownshandrum dynamo what many inside the county saw - a midfielder without peer. They knew they had an exceptional talent, a model trainer, driven, single-minded, fanatical. They just didn't know what to do with him.

Hell, as the 2003 season developed, it was almost as if Donal O'Grady and his selectors - then in their first year - felt that, instead of the two individual stars they had in their hands, they merely had two halves of the one player. The two lads spent game after game replacing each other, usually Jerry coming in for Ben.

It was a scenario that displeased the man who knew most about the brothers, the man who had coached them to practically every underage title available in Cork hurling - their father, Bernie.

This is what he had to say before Cork blitzed Clare that season: "I've seen that, if one is coming off, he's replaced by the other, which I think is totally wrong. They're very different players, Ben is a top-class finisher, Jerry has a terrific engine, would run all day, does a great job coming through from midfield in support of the ball.

"If I was in charge of the team Jerry would be at centre-forward, Ben in the corner, and there would be thought put into every ball, we would be playing a totally different style of hurling."

It took another year before Bernie got his wish, although he didn't get it fully. The twins were one line further outfield, Jerry at midfield, Ben on the wing, but Cork did change their style to a running, possession game.

With Ben as captain, they won the All-Ireland in convincing fashion. Jerry was a unanimous All-Star choice, Ben just missed out.

From a Cork perspective, however, even from a hurling perspective, the sad thing is this: had those earlier Cork management teams seen the light, Ben and Jerry O'Connor would have been doing what they did so successfully last year for at least three years before that.

John McCarthy, who captained the Newtownshandrum side that won the All-Ireland club title last year, recalls: "I suppose it goes back to 1991, and that famous U-12 team (the side from which most of those who went on to All-Ireland club honours in 2004 came), but it really didn't show itself, for me anyway, until the U-14 team a couple of years later.

"Jerry used to hold his hurley left below the right, the unorthodox way, didn't have the more natural grip he has now. Ben got all the limelight, he was much better than Jerry at that time. But when Jerry got to U-14 two years later, he had changed his grip, and he improved. His stamina also started to become a major factor. When he got to U-14, you knew he was a gem.

"His best ever game for Newtown was the drawn game against Na Piarsaigh in 1998; I'll never forget one particular incident. There was about three points in it, 10 minutes to go. Teu Ó hAilpin ran with the ball, Jerry chasing, but Teu caught Jerry's hurley under his arm, fell down, pulled Jerry down on top of him, and the referee gave a free to Na Piarsaigh. An easy point, a crucial score for Na Piarsaigh, and if someone had pulled that stunt on me, I'd have lost the head with the ref, I wouldn't have been able to control myself.

"But Jerry just got up, picked up his hurley, ran back to the goals to face the free, and not a word out of him, not a word. We came back to draw that game, from about seven points down, and Jerry was by far and away the man-of-the-match, set up a goal for John Paul King, brought the ball from his own full-back line. But that incident just showed the temperament of the guy even at 19."

That was Jerry to a tee. On a blue-collar team, he is the ultimate blue-collar worker, first to clock in, last to clock out, head down for the full shift, no slacking. When he was in Garda Training College in Templemore, he came under the wing of Ken Hogan, who, up to last week, was manager of the Tipperary hurlers.

"He was a late-comer when he joined, about 24. In a way, that's a better way, as it's something you've been thinking about, you're more mature, and that was Jerry, very steady, very unassuming, never looks for any special attention, for any recognition of who he is, or what he's achieved.

"His stamina is amazing, and you can see that in the way he plays. He gets uptight before games, takes it so seriously, but as the game goes on, he gets stronger and stronger, and that was very obvious against Clare. When you go six points behind, as Cork did in the second half of that game, it's then you find out about your players, and that's when the O'Connors came good," said Hogan.

"They never panicked, never changed their game; there was no snap shooting from long range. Under pressure, they kept doing what they're best at, win the ball, take it on, lay it off, continue for the return pass, create the score. Making sure."

He will thank no one for this exposure, Jerry O'Connor. He is not in this sport for man-of-the-match awards, Allstars, hurler-of-the-year accolades. He is there for his team, to win, to do what he's always done. Link, run, work, defend, attack, but never, ever, lose sight of the main prize. The win.

Focus? Watch those eyes.