WHEN he was interviewed for the 2022 book Cork Hurling: Game of My Life, current Cork manager Ben O’Connor opted for the 2008 All-Ireland SHC qualifier victory over Galway as the match that stood out for him.

BY JOHNNY CAROLAN

On a day when Dónal Óg Cusack was sent off in the first half – and when Joe Canning scored 2-12 to announce himself to a national audience – Cork’s 14 men produced a battling display to triumph by 0-23 to 2-15.

In the bigger picture, it didn’t amount to a huge amount of significance but it was a special experience for players and fans. That and the 2005 All-Ireland final win – Cork’s last, lest we forget – when O’Connor scored 1-7, are the high points of his outings against Galway.

The flipside is that there were some bad days too, such as the 2002 defeat in Thurles which was the straw that broke the camel’s back leading to the first strike, and O’Connor’s last inter-county championship game, in 2011.

‘That was the last one, below in Limerick, we got a hiding off them, so I've been on both sides of it.

‘That 2008 game was one of the most memorable out of all my time playing. It was an All-Ireland qualifier, not even a semi-final or a quarter-final, but that’ll tell you.

‘Down through the years, Cork and Galway have always had good hurling games and, most of the time, high-scoring then as well.

‘Whatever the scoring-rate is on Saturday, hopefully we’ll have one point more than them and that’s the most important thing.’

Galway’s style of play differs from most of the other top sides, with the Tribesmen having found joy from isolating Jason Rabbitte as a target-man while Cathal Mannion has excelled in dropping deep in a quarterback-style role.

Cork did win when the sides met at Pearse Stadium in the Allianz HL in January, but O’Connor knows that a big task awaits.

‘I suppose we got to see that very early in the year, when we went up to play them up in Salthill,’ he says.

‘Now, we were lucky enough to win on the night, but they had a lot of wides the same night, especially in the first half.

‘I think we only went in two or three points down at half-time, after Galway had done all the hurling.

‘So I suppose it took us a while to get used to the way they played, but they do have a different kind of style compared to everyone else.

‘He's just working with what they have – they've got a few big, strong fellas fired in here and there and they're very pacey.

‘They've a lot of new fellas that they've brought through, and they're playing, and I suppose they're getting the benefits of it now. Younger fellas coming in, they've no fear of anything, they're having a right cut.’

Micheál Donoghue’s side come in after a four-week break since romping past Dublin in the Leinster final.

‘They’ll have known after the Leinster final that they had the four weeks to work with,’ O’Connor says.

‘Like us after the Munster final, they’ll probably have taken a week, or the bones of a week, off to recharge batteries.

‘Then, since two weeks ago, they’ll have known that it was us they'd be playing and so they’ve had a bit of time to do a bit of work on us.

‘Look, we're happy enough where we are. We've had the two-week break since the last game and I think that our lads seem to like that as well.

‘You do a small little bit in between, but it's not too much. All the work was done earlier in the year physically, so now it's only about touching up the hurling.’