{"id":488002,"date":"2026-06-07T20:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T20:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/488002\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T20:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T20:16:10","slug":"ben-oconnor-says-cork-players-were-not-told-last-free-had-to-go-direct","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/488002\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben O&#8217;Connor says Cork players were not told last free had to go direct"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\">Cork manager Ben O\u2019Connor was left aggrieved by what he felt was a return to \u2018league refereeing\u2019 in Sunday\u2019s final.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The overall free count was 18-14 in Limerick\u2019s favour \u2013 O\u2019Connor also took issue with the fact that referee James Owens did not tell his players that the 14th free awarded to Cork, at the very end, had to go dead.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">With the breeze against him, Cork goalkeeper Patrick Collins tried to work the ball short to Mark Coleman and Tim O\u2019Mahony but Owens blew for time just as O\u2019Mahony launched it and Limerick regained the Mick Mackey Cup, the seventh victory in eight seasons.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/5110188_6_articleinlinemobile_3479111.jpg\" alt=\"William Buckley of Cork is tackled by Sean Finn of Limerick. Picture: Ray McManus\/Sportsfile\" title=\"William Buckley of Cork is tackled by Sean Finn of Limerick. Picture: Ray McManus\/Sportsfile\" class=\"card-img\"\/>William Buckley of Cork is tackled by Sean Finn of Limerick. Picture: Ray McManus\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The Shannonsiders go straight through to the All-Ireland SHC semi-final on Sunday, July 5 against either Clare or Dublin, while Cork must take on Offaly in a quarter-final in a fortnight \u2013 the winners of that will do battle with Galway on Saturday evening, July 4.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">In addition to feeling that Cork were penalised more than their opponents, he was frustrated with how that last free was officiated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cI met some of the boys there and they just said, going off the field, that he didn&#8217;t tell them that it was the last puck of the ball. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n            I thought normally a referee would just say, \u2018This is it lads, you should go direct,\u2019 but they said he didn&#8217;t.\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cThe boys, when you say surrounded him, that&#8217;s a little bit much now. They were walking alongside him with his team of officials.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cThey were walking alongside him. They never even raised their voice and just said, \u2018Why didn&#8217;t you tell us?\u2019 That was the only issue the boys had.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cI am only getting third-hand information off the lads, that is what they said to me coming off. I was talking to them coming out and they said they weren\u2019t told anything.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">RED-EYED<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">It stung all the more given how Cork were disappointed with the decisions that went against them prior to that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cI\u2019m not taking away from Limerick\u2019s win but I do think there was a few [went against Cork],\u201d O\u2019Connor said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cWe\u2019ve got to here now and championship refereeing, whereas I thought that was a little bit more like league hurling.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Owens had also refereed the Cork-Limerick round-robin game in April, when more was allowed to flow.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cI thought he done a great job the first day, but we won the first day, so maybe that\u2019s why I\u2019m giving out!\u201d O\u2019Connor laughed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cI just thought today it was very whistle-happy. You can\u2019t be criticising these fellas \u2013 they are not getting paid, they are inside there and there is fierce pressure on them. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cIt is a split-second decision. But I am looking at it through red eyes and I thought we were harshly treated in a few of them.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cork manager Ben O\u2019Connor was left aggrieved by what he felt was a return to \u2018league refereeing\u2019 in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488003,"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-488002","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\/488002","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=488002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}