{"id":418933,"date":"2026-04-26T20:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T20:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/418933\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T20:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T20:18:09","slug":"ben-oconnor-hails-cork-character-but-concern-over-injuries-to-ciaran-joyce-and-rob-downey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/418933\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben O’Connor hails Cork character but concern over injuries to Ciar\u00e1n Joyce and Rob Downey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cork hurling manager Ben O\u2019Connor had faith that his team would respond strongly when they fell behind to a 68th-minute goal from Limerick\u2019s Diarmaid Byrnes in Sunday\u2019s Munster SHC clash.<\/p>\n

Byrne\u2019s low strike from a free that had been brought closer to goal put the visitors \u2013 who were down to 14 men after the dismissal of captain Cian Lynch \u2013 ahead y 1-23 to 2-19 but it proved to be their last score and Cork hit back with two Alan Connolly frees and a Darragh Fitzgibbon point.<\/p>\n

For O\u2019Connor, Cork\u2019s character shone through when they needed to show it most.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was still only a point in it at that stage,\u201d he said, \u201cand I thought the breeze was after actually swinging a small bit, so we were able to get the puckout maybe 10 or 15 yards further down the field. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut look, you never know \u2013 you\u2019re hoping that the boys will dig deep and get the next couple of scores, which they did.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe us on the sideline might have panicked a small bit, but the boys inside didn’t seem to panic at all. We had a lot of fellas there that put their hand up again today when the going got tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BenBen O’Connor and Limerick manager John Kiely shake hands after. Picture: Seb Daly\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n

In the first half, Cork took a while to get going \u2013 Limerick led by 0-9 to 0-2 and 0-10 to 0-3 but Shane Barrett\u2019s goal helped to bring the home side closer and they retired at half-time trailing by just two, 0-16 to 1-11.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, the goal was a huge score for us,\u201d O\u2019Connor said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI suppose, going in at half-time only down two points after what-not hurling for the first 15 or 16 minutes \u2013 I thought we came well into it then for the second half of the first half, but going in only two points down at half-time, we’d have been happy enough with that. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut again, you just saw the levels that them fellas are able to go to \u2013 that’s Limerick, that’s Cork, them fellas are putting their bodies on the line out there. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut again, look, we\u2019re delighted to have two points in the bag.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n If you told us at the start of the championship, after two games we’d have four points, we’d have been thrilled.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

This victory, coupled with the triumph away to Tipperary last Sunday, means that another win from either of the last two matches, away to Waterford on May 9 or at home to Clare on May 24, will almost certainly put Cork into the Munster final.<\/p>\n

BIG LOSSES<\/p>\n

Full-back Ciar\u00e1n Joyce could be a doubt for those after a knee injury forced him off in the opening minutes of the game, while Robert Downey was forced off at the death.<\/p>\n

\"Se\u00e1nSe\u00e1n O’Donoghue clears from Gear\u00f3id Hegarty of Limerick. Picture: Seb Daly\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn’t look good anyway at the moment, but that’s only the boys looking at it themselves,\u201d O\u2019Connor said of Joyce\u2019s situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’ll be scanned, I suppose, tomorrow and Rob as well, he’ll be scanned as well tomorrow. <\/p>\n

\u201cI suppose we got away with it the last day, we had no injury after Tipp, so we\u2019re after picking up two there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Hopefully, they\u2019re maybe knocks but Joycey\u2019s looked a little bit worse than that.\n <\/p>\n

\u201cIt wouldn\u2019t be too bad if it was a hamstring. Until he has the scan, he doesn\u2019t know how bad it is.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cork hurling manager Ben O\u2019Connor had faith that his team would respond strongly when they fell behind to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1965,1964,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-418933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-hurling","tag-cork-gaa","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418933","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=418933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}