ANY manager coming into an inter-county role tends to face questions about what kind of style they will employ.

BY JOHNNY CAROLAN

For Ben O’Connor, who takes charge of Cork at Páirc Uí Chaoimh for the first time in Sunday’s National Hurling League opener against Waterford, the style boils down to one thing: winning.

‘I’m open, open to everything and anything,’ he said.

‘If our goalkeeper can puck the ball the length of the field and score a point every time, we’ll do that. If we don’t concede a goal and we get the first score, we’ll win the game. If he can do that, I’m open to that. If it takes me ten passes to get it from here down to the end of the road, I’ll do ten passes to get it down there. Every game is different and you have to treat every game differently. I have a way that I’d like to see it played.

‘Obviously, I’d like to see it played with a touch of class. I like good hurlers but I’d like to think that when a bit of fight and a bit of dirt would have to be around, I wouldn’t shy away from that either when I was playing myself and I hope the players that I have picked out are all the same.

‘We’ll be able to battle and we’ll be able to play it nice as well if need be.’

The Cork job is always demanding but, with a 20-year wait having become 21 in agonising fashion in Croke Park last July, things ramped up another notch.

To that end, judgement will be based solely on if the All-Ireland can be secured – to get to that point, O’Connor is looking for the most from every match.

‘Whatever about anyone else, I want to win,’ he added.

‘Whatever opinion anyone else has that this should be done or that should be done, I want to win. If it was only a challenge match out on the 4G next week, I’d want to win that. That’s just the way I’m wired. If I was playing five-a-side soccer at home, I’d want to win that as well.

‘I’m going in to win every game, if possible, and I want to get the best out of every fella that we have. If we can do that and that’s not good enough, so be it. As long as we get 100 per cent out of every fella and every fella performs to their full, I’m happy with that. We’ll be tough taskmasters and we’ll demand. But the squad that we have, that’s what they're looking for too. They want fellas to be challenging them because they’ll come up with all the answers.’

There is of course no shortage of external noise either but O’Connor is able to block that out.

‘I suppose I’m not on social media and I don’t read papers,’ the Cork boss admitted.

‘That’s not good for you lads, but I don’t. I know there’s noise going on in the background and I know there are people commenting, but my job inside in this group is to keep every fella as happy as possible.

‘We’re not going to keep every fella happy all the time but we’re trying to keep them happy most of the time. That's my biggest job. As for expectation, where else would you want to be? I don't want to be in any other dressing room in the country. As a Corkman, I want to be inside in this dressing room and drive on what we have here.

‘Fair play to Pat (Ryan) and his lads for the last couple of years. They have a lot of the heavy lifting done. We’re just hoping that we’ll be able to tweak it here or there a small bit to put us back at the top of the ladder again.’

Sunday is the first step towards that and it will be a proud day for the Newtownshandrum man and his family, but he is looking at the bigger picture.

‘It’s not about me. I’m one of a group that’s involved in this,’ O’Connor said.

‘Obviously, I’m delighted. My small ones will see me walking out and they’ll be delighted. They’ll be waving down at me and they’ll have questions and answers for me after the match.

‘I suppose it’s a big day out but it’s not about me, it’s not about any individual, it’s about the group. That’s not a spurious answer just to fire back at you. That’s what it’s about.

‘One man out of the team, next man in. That’s the way we're operating. It has to be that way. Everyone is treated the same, everyone is treated with respect and we’re getting it back. That’s the way everyone will be treated on the panel.’