Now comes the hard part: Ben O'Connor on trimming Cork's hurling squad

New Cork manager pleased with effort and attitude as late Cunningham penalty secures narrow Munster league win

THE WAY FORWARD: Cork manager Ben O'Connor in Mallow on Monday night. Pic: Natasha Barton, Inpho

Ben O’Connor was fulsome in his praise after a largely experimental Cork side pipped Clare in the Co-Op Superstores Munster hurling league in Mallow on Monday, 1-18 to 0-20. It marked a first win for the new manager and significantly it was achieved without any of the starters from last July’s All-Ireland final defeat to Tipperary.

A 1-10 return from Ben Cunningham included a converted penalty a minute from time after towering forward Alan Walsh won a high delivery and was fouled. With Clare leading up to this juncture, the only goal of the hour proved to be a game-changer.

As management set about reducing their squad ahead of Sunday week’s opening league tie at home to Waterford (the Déise will meet Limerick in the Munster league final on Saturday), Walsh and Cunningham were among those identified.

“Yeah, (Alan's) a handful,” O’Connor said. “At six foot four, and if the ball is in around him, he's going to be hitting some fella with his elbow into the ear so it's always going to be dangerous. And I suppose Cunningham then to stick it as well. He was after being moved in full-forward with a bit of a hamstring twinge. But in fairness to him, he showed a bit of bottle, he still wanted to take the penalty. That's what it takes. So look, onwards and upwards.

“We’ve 47 in the panel. Every fella wants to stay on the field as long as they can. There's 11 must go to make a panel of 36. All the boys knew what was ahead. We just hope that every fella enjoyed their time inside with us. And look, it's not nice, but it has to be done.” 

Cork played against the wind in the first half, after which they trailed 0-12 to 0-7.

“Clare had more experience than us. But the wind, you see how easier it was in the second half, the wind was strong and straight down the field. It does make a difference. Instead of a puck-out landing on your 45, it is landing inside on the edge of the D. It puts you on the forward foot.

“Outside of the wind, it was just the attitude of the lads. It was important that we were still in touch at half-time. As I said, this time of the year that is what it is about, rolling up the sleeves and digging in.

“Even when we brought it back, Clare went four up (0-16 to 0-12) and we could have folded at that stage, but there was a good bit of bite and fight in fellas. They improved from last Wednesday night (Limerick loss), which wouldn’t have been hard, but we just looked for effort tonight. This time of year that is all you can expect.

PRESENCE: Cork’s Alan Walsh goes past Senan Dunford of Clare. Pic: Natasha Barton

“We are delighted with the way fellas performed, and it was nice to have a crowd behind you as well. Last week in Limerick, there was nothing to get fellas going, whereas when we were getting a few scores there, the crowd got behind them and it spurred them on a small bit.

“Above all, what we were looking for was what we got. It was nice to get the win, but the result was irrelevant. All we wanted was to work, and work hard. And that is what we got out of it. That’s when you learn about fellas coming up against the best players.

“We didn't want to be coming up here and having our panel picked before the game. So now there's fellas after putting their hand up outside there, so they'll be discussed more later on. It’s just after making it hard. You'll be going through it, and you have one panel this week, and in two days' time, it’s something different when you see games like that.”