Ben O'Connor says cutting squad 'not nice' but must be done

Ben O’Connor acknowledges that he and his selectors will have a difficult task in cutting the Cork hurling squad for the Allianz Hurling League, but he is glad to be put in such a position.

On Monday night, the Rebels came back from eight points down in the first half of their Co-op SuperStores Munster Hurling League clash with Clare in Mallow to win by a point, 1-18 to 0-20.

While it wasn’t enough to qualify for Saturday’s final – the heavy loss to Limerick last Wednesday meant that too much of a scoring-difference turnaround was needed – the result did at least show O’Connor and his selectors that some of the fringe players on show will be worthy of another look as the current group of 47 players needs to be trimmed.

“We have to have a panel of 36, so there's 11 to go,” he said.

“It's not the nice side of it. All the boys knew when they were getting involved at the start what was ahead. We just hope that every fella enjoyed their time inside with us.

“And look, it's not nice, but it has to be done.”
Five nights previously, O’Connor had been left disappointed after a 15-point loss away to Limerick but against the Banner he felt that the workrate was much improved – helping to give him more of a selection headache.

“We didn't want to be coming up here and having our panel picked before the game. So now there's fellas after putting their hand up outside there, so they'll be discussed more later on. It’s just after making it hard.

“You'll be going through it, and you have one panel this week, and in two days' time, it’s something different when you see games like that. It has to be done, that's just the way it is.”

The win left Cork, Clare and Limerick level on three points each, with Limerick taking top spot and the place in the final. Though qualification was always going to be a tall order, O’Connor was happy with how the team never wilted, despite trailing for almost all of the game.

“Even when we brought it back, they went four up [in the second half] and we could have folded at that stage, but there was a good bit of bite and fight in fellas.

“They improved from last Wednesday night [Limerick loss], which wouldn’t have been hard, but we just looked for effort tonight, this time of year that is all you can expect.

“We are delighted with the way fellas performed, and I suppose it was nice to have a crowd behind you as well. Last week in Limerick there was nothing to get fellas going, whereas when we were getting a few scores there, the crowd got behind them and it spurred them on a small bit.

“Above all, what we were looking for was what we got. It was nice to get the win at the end of it but the result was irrelevant.

“All we wanted was to work, and work hard. And that is what we got out of it.”