Brian Hayes says William Buckley's Cork gym numbers show he is no lightweight

Brian Hayes grew up on the same estate as Cork and St Finbarr's teammate William Buckley. He believes his friend has the potential to reach "another level"

Fri, 22 May, 2026 - 07:09

PJ Browne

Brian Hayes believes his Cork and St Finbarr’s teammate William Buckley has only scratched the surface of his potential after an impressive start to his senior inter-county hurling career The young forward shone on his championship debut last month, scoring six points in the victory over Tipperary. He followed that with two points against Limerick and three against Waterford.

“William has been unbelievable since he came in,” Hayes said at the launch of Clean Cut Meals as the official ready meal partner of the GAA and GPA.

“He’s only on the panel since last year. The way he's progressed, I think he can reach another level in the future. He’s working really hard all the time.” Hayes knows Buckley well, not just because they are Barrs teammates. They grew up in the same estate, just five minutes from the club.

“William is 2004 and I'm 2001, so we wouldn't have played together growing up until minor,” said Hayes. “He would have been on my minor team, but he didn't play, he was just training with us.

“Then he would have been called up as a minor and played senior with the Barrs in 2022 when we won the county. He was only 18 that year.

“I would have been playing with William since we were young fellas. We live in the same estate. We’d be pucking around in the green. He's a good friend.”

Former Tipperary hurler Shane McGrath said recently that hurling is no longer a game for smaller players. Buckley, not a giant like the 6’ 4” Hayes, is an outlier.

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“He’s not that small either,” Hayes said about Buckley, “people think he's small, he's not that small and he's definitely strong. He'd be up there in his rankings in the gym. The weight he's lifting, it's not like he'd be anywhere near the weakest on the panel. His hurling is obviously one of his strong points.”

After Cork’s win against Waterford, Hayes said his side’s ability to win tight games in this year’s championship was a sign of the resilience in the group. “A lot of questions have been asked, some fairly and some not so fairly,” he added. What were those questions?

"I was talking about some of the questions that would have been asked from within the management circles and within the group and not even questions outside,” he explained.

“Like our work-rate in the league final, were we happy with that? It's easy to look at clips and show examples of plays where you're not giving it a 100% for a play and that's definitely something that you'd be wanting to just sit back on a Monday and not have any regrets about how you continued to work hard in a match.

“They'd be some of the questions that I think we went after, that when we come in on a Monday, Ben can't question our work-rate. If we can do that, we'll see where it takes us.”

Alan Connolly had a penalty saved in that victory over Waterford. Mark Coleman later stepped up to convert another. Former Cork hurler Seánie McGrath suggested there being no drama about the change of penalty taker reflected an absence of egos in the panel.

“People from outside might create their own opinion on players within the group,” said Hayes. “Everyone in the team is just in it for the group and for the better.

“I think we saw that the other day when Mark was asked to come up and take the penalty. He's such a good hurler that he can come up and he didn't even blink. He just played what's in front of him and gave it his all for that moment.

“That's something that definitely all of us have as a culture within the group that whoever is doing it, whether it's a player stepping in for an injured player or someone taking a penalty or someone taking a free, it doesn't really matter, just whoever is doing it at the time, we'll back them.”