{"id":512203,"date":"2026-06-22T07:16:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T07:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/512203\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T07:16:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T07:16:17","slug":"ben-oconnor-cork-players-drove-munster-final-response","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/512203\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben O’Connor: Cork players drove Munster final response"},"content":{"rendered":"

A year ago, Limerick lost a Munster SHC final to Cork on penalties and were unable to bounce back in the All-Ireland quarter-finals, losing to Dublin.<\/p>\n

Having been beaten by a point by the Shannonsiders in this year\u2019s provincial decider, Cork players and management were adamant in the build-up to yesterday\u2019s clash with Offaly that complacency would not be an issue and they backed that up.<\/p>\n

Inside five minutes, the Rebels led by 1-2 to 0-0 and the scores flowed throughout a rampant first half, with a half-time lead of 5-14 to 0-6.<\/p>\n

By the end, 26 points separated the sides, leaving manager Ben O\u2019Connor satisfied when he spoke to the media afterwards.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suppose, coming up, people were saying we were a raging hot favourite,\u201d he said, \u201cso you’d be afraid maybe in the back of fellas\u2019 heads that that was going to be a problem, but it wasn’t.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe boys treat everyone the same, it\u2019s a championship game. It isn’t that we’re winning All-Irelands every day of the week, so they’re not going to get carried away or get caught on a day.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe attitude since the Munster final was unbelievable, fellas just knuckled down and said \u2018We\u2019re starting a new competition, we’ll drive on for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Cork'sCork’s William Buckley with Ben Conneely of Offaly. Picture: Inpho\/Tom O’Hanlon<\/p>\n

Previously, a third-placed side taking on a provincial final loser would have had a preliminary quarter-final win under their belts; the change in system this year meant that Offaly were coming in off the back of a four-week lay-off, whereas the Munster final \u2013 even if it was a defeat \u2013 stood to Cork.<\/p>\n

\u201cAh, the players drove it on themselves in fairness,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe trained on the Tuesday, we did a light session, then we were off until the Saturday and then after that they came back in. <\/p>\n

\u201cEven for myself, you\u2019d be disappointed for a few days, but it wasn\u2019t the be-all and the end-all, losing the Munster final, because of the way the championship is. <\/p>\n

\u201cYears ago, that was it, knockout and gone for us, whereas now it\u2019s on to the third competition, the All-Ireland series.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, look, we’ve our first game out of the way now and we\u2019re inside in an All-Ireland semi-final and we’ll be going gung-ho again for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two slight concerns from an otherwise positive day were the fact that defenders Robert Downey and Mark Coleman suffered injuries.<\/p>\n

\u201cRob got a knock to his ankle, and Mark got a touch of a groin strain, that’s why he came off the end,\u201d O\u2019Connor said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were probably taking Rob as well, only we had our five subs used at that stage, so he went up the field and decided he was going to have a shot at goal while he was up there!<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully they won\u2019t be too serious but they\u2019ll be assessed and go for scans during the week.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AA sea of red descends on to the pitch after the game. Picture :Noel Sweeney<\/p>\n

Tim O\u2019Mahony and Tommy O\u2019Connell will also be monitored ahead of the semi after missing this win, while Darragh Fitzgibbon got soe valuable game-time after his appendectomy while Robbie O\u2019Flynn scored a point off the bench, having been out with a hamstring problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cFellas are training so long, they’re just mad for game-time, so it’s nice to be able to put on five subs,\u201d O\u2019Connor said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was great for Darragh to be able to come back and suffer no ill-effects of the operation, either. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe panel is a good bit different this year as well. There\u2019s new fellas in and they’re driving it and the older fellas are accepting the challenge and they’re driving on as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see there, there was five fellas came on and they got their game-time, with another six fellas above in the stand, they got no game-time. They\u2019ll be disappointed but we had ten fellas at home, so, look, it’s a hard place to be when you’re not getting game-time, but in fairness, all them fellas will be on the training again next week and they’ll give it their all for a red jersey.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A year ago, Limerick lost a Munster SHC final to Cork on penalties and were unable to bounce…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1964,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-512203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","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\/512203","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=512203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}