O’Connor: a beautiful way to end the year

THAT green and gold machine keeps rolling on.

Newtownshandrum have had bigger days – they’ve certainly had warmer – but yesterday’s Munster club final victory over Ballygunner was summed up succinctly by Jerry O’Connor: “Top class.”

The Gunners’ remarkable comeback from ten points down to level matters with five minutes left made it all the sweeter.

“I suppose for 50 minutes we played good stuff, and we maybe went to sleep for about ten minutes,” said O’Connor. “And we were punished for that. It’s a good sign for our lads, though, that we were able to tack on the couple of scores towards the end when the pressure was on. We were able to drive it on. It’s a beautiful way to end the year.”

Did a Newtown lull contribute to Ballygunner’s revival?

“I’d say the problem was that we were well up, we had a great start to the second half – and then we started taking bad shots ourselves. All the forwards took some bad shots at goal when normally they’d be passing the ball off to other lads in better positions.

“I suppose everybody feels like they want to be the man getting the point. That didn’t work in our favour. At the end we went back to brass tacks, throwing the ball around.”

Centre-back Pat Mulcahy felt an injury to Jerry O’Connor didn’t help their cause either.

“We were getting a bit shaky about five minutes before they got that run on us for some reason, I don’t know what it is but sometimes when we go ahead by a couple of points we seem to lose our concentration.

“When Jerry got injured at that stage of the second half it probably didn’t help. We probably lost a bit of leadership up front at a vital stage of the game. We also started conceding frees at the back just as Ballygunner started to come into it, so all things considered we were lucky enough to get out of it with a win.”

Jerry O’Connor admitted that the presence of Paul Flynn in the opposite corner was a worry when Newtown conceded those frees.

“You’d have to be nervous when you start conceding frees to a team with the likes of Paul Flynn,” said O’Connor.

“I don’t think he missed a free all day – from anywhere on the field. Any ball coming in around the square you’d be thinking ‘if this gets any touch . . .’

“But in the last five minutes our full-back line was outstanding. You saw small Jerry (O’Mahony) coming out with the ball at the end – he was hardly able to walk, not to mind run, but he still flicked the ball on with one hand and gave a good pass into Ben. That was top class.”

The heavy ground didn’t help Newtown’s passing game either, and Pat Mulcahy paid tribute to their Waterford opponents’ commitment.

“Physically it was tough, very tough,” said Mulcahy. “In fairness to the lads in Semple Stadium, the pitch itself is in very good condition, particularly given the weather we’ve had in the last few weeks, but understandably it was still heavy underfoot.

“Ballygunner hit us with everything, absolutely everything. When they brought us back level I was a bit worried – we were definitely under pressure.

“But I always felt that as long as we didn’t concede another goal we’d be okay, and we tacked another couple of points. In fairness to the referee, I thought he had a good day but he seemed to give the team on the front foot more frees than the team which was losing. When they got the frees in the second half it brought them back into it.

“In fairness to the team, for a long time we’ve been confident that we’d be able to come out on the right side of a one-point game – and in fairness, we probably should have won by more in the end.”

And the All-Ireland series? Ballyhale Shamrocks star-studded combination are lurking, while Newtown have unfinished business with Galway kingpins Portumna, who shackled their running game in the club decider three years ago.

But all that can wait a while, according to both of the men from north Cork.

“I’m not passing on that but to be honest, it’s still 2009,” said Mulcahy. “Next year is another year, a different year – that’s being realistic – so we’ll enjoy ourselves tonight and take next year as it comes.”

Jerry O’Connor also promised a good evening, though he didn’t miss the opportunity to talk up Newtown’s All-Ireland semi-final opponents.

“Ballyhale are a great team – Henry Shefflin, Cha Fitzpatrick, Michael Fennelly and so on. We’ll have our work cut out but hopefully we’ll get over them and we can talk about other teams then.”