{"id":275395,"date":"2026-02-01T13:16:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T13:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/275395\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T13:16:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T13:16:12","slug":"manliness-being-taken-from-hurling-ben-oconnor-feels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/275395\/","title":{"rendered":"Manliness being taken from hurling, Ben O’Connor feels"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cork manager Ben O\u2019Connor believes that moves to \u2018cleanse\u2019 hurling are taking the manliness out of the game.<\/p>\n

Speaking after Saturday night\u2019s Allianz Hurling League Division 1A win over Galway, O\u2019Connor praised his team\u2019s ability to turn things around after a slow start \u2013 but he noted the difficulty in getting messages in to them, in any case.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s themselves,\u201d he said, when asked if the management needed to question players\u2019 desire to improve.<\/p>\n

\n We are only here to support them fellas, them fellas know what they want. They know what they are doing. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou lay out something, they go and do it. You see in the second half, as I said, you can\u2019t get messages out to the field. It isn\u2019t right, in my opinion, that you can\u2019t. <\/p>\n

\u201cTraining all week, you can tell fellas this and tell them that, then you go into a match and can\u2019t get information in. They have to figure out themselves inside. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn fairness, most of them they come up with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Cork\u2019sCork\u2019s manager Ben O’Connor and his backroom team in Galway. Picture: INPHO\/James Crombie<\/p>\n

The follow-up question asked O\u2019Connor if he would like to see a return to the maor foirne acting as a \u2018runner\u2019, passing instructions to players.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re gone like soccer, aren\u2019t we?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlack cards, red cards, yellow cards, technical areas \u2013 we\u2019re following that game. <\/p>\n

\u201cLook, that is the fellas above trying to cleanse hurling. That is what they are trying to do, if you want to be fair about it. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t any dust-up, they don\u2019t want any bit of blood spilt, they don\u2019t want a hurley broke, they want to make it a nice game for \u2018my little Johnny\u2019 at home. <\/p>\n

\u201cGenuine hurling people don\u2019t want that. They want a good, hard physical game \u2013 no-one is hurt when it is played that way. There wasn\u2019t a dirty stroke pulled outside there tonight. No-one got hurt. <\/p>\n

\n That is higher above, they are trying to take the manliness out of the game, in my opinion.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

Cork certainly had to show their physicality to get back into a game that threatened to go away from them in the first half.<\/p>\n

Down by seven points on two occasions, they managed to reel off five points in a row coming up to half-time to trail by just one. Prior to that, though, Galway provided a far tougher challenge than Waterford had in the opening-round 14-point win.<\/p>\n

\"Cork\u2019sCork\u2019s Brian Hayes celebrates scoring the opening goal against Galway at Pearse Stadium. Picture: INPHO\/James Crombie<\/p>\n

\u201cLast Sunday, we were on the ball straightaway,\u201d O\u2019Connor said.<\/p>\n

UNDER PRESSURE<\/p>\n

\u201cI suppose that was the pressure we were under last Sunday, for the first 20 minutes we were able to do as we liked, whereas we weren\u2019t tonight. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe were under a bit of pressure \u2013 to be fair about it, Galway should have been out of sight. They had a lot of wides. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe chatted with the lads at half-time, they weren\u2019t happy with what they came up with. We rectified it in the second half \u2013 a dogged win, exactly what you want in the league.<\/p>\n

\n Good fighting attitude out of fellas. It was nice to get the two points at the end of the day.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

Of Cork\u2019s tally, 13 points \u2013 all from play \u2013 came from the half-forward line of captain Darragh Fitzgibbon, Shane Barrett and S\u00e9amus Harnedy.<\/p>\n

The latter was playing his first game under O\u2019Connor and chipped in with four points from play in a performance that belied his age.<\/p>\n

\u201cS\u00e9amus is what, 35 years of age?\u201d the manager said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat drives him only the young fellas at training. We are delighted to get as long as we did out of S\u00e9amie, that probably wasn\u2019t the plan. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe was going so well and we said we\u2019d leave him inside. That will stand to him next week again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cork manager Ben O\u2019Connor believes that moves to \u2018cleanse\u2019 hurling are taking the manliness out of the game.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1965,1964,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-275395","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-hurling","9":"tag-cork-gaa","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}