Newtown’s magic man
In 1999, barely 19 years of age, Ben O’Connor exploded onto the senior hurling inter-county scene, a star as Cork won a most unexpected All-Ireland title. A couple of years later he was joined on the big stage by twin brother Jerry and together they lit up the game for several years, inspiring Cork to four All-Ireland final appearances in-a-row (2003, 04, 05, 06), winning two, becoming the first set of twins to win All-Star awards in the same year (2005) in the process. For good measure, in 2004, Ben captained Cork to victory, Jerry was named hurler-of-the-year.
Late last autumn, without fanfare, Jerry retired from the inter-county scene; early last week, again without fanfare, Ben also walked away. That’s just their way — no fuss, no trumpet blast, just quietly disappear back into the crowd.
