Connors looks on bright side as young guns lift Déise

POSITIVITY oozes through Noel Connors’ pores as quickly as it courses through his veins. Why shouldn’t it? It’s an attitude that’s earned him a Munster title as well as an All Star and two nominations in his first two full seasons playing senior hurling with Waterford.

It’s an attitude that has seen him overcome a troublesome ankle injury to take his place in his county’s full-back line against Cork tomorrow. If smiling means he keeps playing – and winning – then you’re going to see a lot more of his pearly choppers.

From defeats, he readily picks the pluses. That sore ankle forced him out of last Saturday’s defeat to Tipperary but he came away from Semple Stadium accentuating the credit his team-mates took from the game after losing Shane O’Sullivan and Clinton Hennessy to straight red cards.