Throwback Thursday: Ben O’Connor held his nerve to make history for Newtown

NINETEEN years ago this week, Newtownshandrum drew with Kilkenny’s O'Loughlin Gaels in the All-Ireland Senior Club Hurling Championship semi-finals at Semple Stadium in Thurles.

It was a bruising clash that was another step towards the ultimate prize for the north-Cork club.

Up until that point, All Ireland titles were almost exclusively held by clubs from the city with Mildeton’s victory in 1988 the only exception. 

Those honours belonged to a different era for Cork hurling, a time when the Tommy Moore Cup was regularly swapped between St Finbarr’s, Glen Rovers, and Blackrock. It was almost a banker back then that the reigning Cork champions would go on and contest the All-Ireland final, but that era came to an end with Newmarket-on-Fergus beating the Barrs in the 1981 Munster quarter-final.

Midleton rekindled some romance with the competition after their victory over Athenry, but that was the end rather than a resurgence as Cork went into a 15-year famine of senior All-Ireland club titles.

Then Newtownshandrum entered the 2003 Cork championship looking to make up for defeat to Blackrock in the 2002 final. They did their domestic duties diligently and defeated the Rockies by five points in the final. 

This was their second senior county title and it completed a great season for Ben O’Connor, who tallied 2-38 in just six championship games.

They went straight into the Munster championship and faced Toomevara, who were playing in their home county of Tipperary. 

What could have been an ambush was handled excellently as Newtownshandrum outscored their hosts 0-15 to 1-9 and that qualified them for the provincial decider.

Patrickswell of Limerick provided little competition in the final and Newtownshandrum won their first provincial crown.

INSPIRED

That didn’t give them a straight passage to the All-Ireland semi-finals, it actually put them into the quarter-finals against Fr Murphy’s from London. Newtownshandrum had to go to the Emerald GAA Ground in England for this and a Ben O’Connor-inspired performance helped them to a nine-point victory.

That set up the fixture with Kilkenny’s O'Loughlin Gaels, the reigning Leinster champions who had two of the starting 15 from the 2003 All-Ireland final. 

They were one of the favourites for the overall championship as they had upset the odds and knocked out three in a row chasing Birr in the Leinster final.

This factor barely featured in the pre-match media in Cork as locals were preoccupied with the fitness of Ben O’Connor, which left him unavailable to train for large periods leading up to the game.

O'Loughlin Gaels blitzed Newtownshandrum in the first half and went into a 0-6 to 0-2 lead, with Maurice Nolan hitting over three points for his club. 

The Cork champions grew into the game and in the 14th minute, Jerry O’Connor dropped the ball into the square. The O'Loughlin Gaels goalkeeper couldn’t control this and Dan O'Riordan tapped the sliotar in, making it 1-4 to 0-6.

This inspired Newtownshandrum and they quickly began to dominate possession. 

Scores arrived in flurries, with a driven shot from 70 meters by Pat Mulcahy the pick of the bunch. This gave them a 1-10 to 0-9 lead at half-time and for the first time in North Cork, people were starting to dream of playing in a senior All-Ireland final.

One player who struggled in that half was Ben O’Connor with a coach telling the Irish Times: “He was only working off 70 percent.” 

That didn’t affect their momentum as the four-point advantage became six with just five minutes gone in the second half. 

It look like a certainty until the referee gave a number of frees to O'Loughlin Gaels, and each one of these was sent over by Nigel Skehan. 

His final free in the 54th minute nudged them in front by one, and it looked like Newtownshandrum’s dream was all but over. Instead, this galvanised the group and they stopped O'Loughlin Gaels from getting an insurance point as the game approached injury time.

In the final second, a free was awarded to Newtownshandrum and Ben O’Connor took this. He split the posts to make it 1–16 to 0–19 and a replay was needed to separate the two near rivals.

They met again six days later at the same venue and Newtownshandrum showed no signs of fatigue as they outscored O'Loughlin Gaels 0-14 to 1-8, and that put them through to their first All-Ireland. 

The Cork club cruised to victory on St Patrick’s Day and defeated Dunloy by eight points. Newtownshandrum had won the biggest prize in club hurling and a long famine in Cork was over.

It was a seismic achievement for the town, one made possible by Ben O’Connor and his last-second free in the All-Ireland semi-final.