Daly and Cork U20s chase All-Ireland hurling crown

BY JOHNNY CAROLAN

RANDAL ÓG share their green and gold colours with Newtownshandrum but in hurling terms the clubs operate in different spheres.

However, the Cork U20 hurling manager, Newtown native Ben O’Connor, certainly wasn’t going to employ any snobbery when it came to picking a squad for the current campaign.

One of those who got the nod was Randals player Seán Daly, who also impressed for UCC in the Fitzgibbon Cup this year. O’Connor hopes that he and the rest of the panel will be supported in Sunday’s oneills.com All-Ireland U20HC final against Offaly at FBD Semple Stadium (3pm).

‘We had a lot of trial games,’ O’Connor says, ‘over 140, 150 players that we’re after looking at.

‘We didn’t care where they were coming from or what club went after their name, once they were able to do the business, we had them.

‘I think we have 16 or 17 clubs represented on the panel and we’d hope that they all come out to support the boys because we know that Offaly are going to bring a huge crowd, we saw that in the Leinster final in Carlow.

‘We’re looking for all the clubs to send people to Thurles on Sunday to give our boys what they deserve and that’s big support.’

With Eoin Downey available to play after senior commitments ruled him out of the last Munster round-robin win over Limerick and the provincial final victory over Clare and no injury worries, O’Connor and his management team of Anthony Nash, Ronan Curran, Ger O’Regan and Terence McCarthy have a full complement to choose from.

O’Connor, an All-Ireland senior winner in 1999, 2004 and 2005 as well as an U21 winner in 1998, has enjoyed coaching success with Charleville (county Premier IHC) and Midleton (Premier SHC) in recent years before making the jump to inter-county. While he has the title of manager rather than coach, in practice there is a big collective effort by the management.

‘When the boys were asking at the start when they got involved, “What am I going to be doing?” I said, “You’ll be doing a bit of everything!” he laughs.

‘I’m not great with sending emails and replying to emails and things like that so everyone gets a bit of a job. We all get involved in all aspects of it and I think that’s what keeps the bunch happy as well because you’re not pigeon-holed into doing one job.

‘We all get our opinion of what we want to do. We met at the start of the year and we decided what way we wanted to play. Once we decided that, everything then was drilled to that.

‘Everything we do training is doing something we’re going to use inside in a match so every fella will do their bit and every fella gets a job. Even if they don’t like doing it at times, every fella will go away and do it anyway!’

With Cork having won the All-Ireland U20 under Pat Ryan in the 2020 and 2021 seasons and the Rebels’ minors also victorious in 2021, there is a lot of winning experience in the squad which should help with dealing with Sunday’s occasion.

‘Even all the championship matches we’ve played this year, we’ve used five subs every day so loads of fellas got game-time,’ O’Connor says.

‘The boys know they’ve one job to do and that's to perform for 60 minutes. We’re not worried about where it is on, whether it’s in Thurles or in Ballinlough, whether it’s training or in a match, we’re just looking to get a performance out of fellas.

‘We want them to play the same as they train and once we get that, we’re happy.’