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 Irish examiner 19th February 2004 | |||
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By Diarmuid O'Flynn
On the other side, despite fears about the O'Connor twins, Jerry and Ben, the Cork champions report a clean bill of health. Midfielder Jerry and centre-forward Ben were both in scintillating form for Newtown in the pulsating drawn game, in the first half especially, but both were in serious difficulties at the break.
Jerry suffered a jolt in taking the shot that set up the only goal of the game, while Ben, an injury worry for a couple of weeks beforehand, was sick at half-time following a first-half all-action display.
Both should be back to full fitness by Saturday however, according to team manager Patsy Morrissey. "They're all in recovery mode at the moment and doing well," he said.
Recovery has been something of a buzzword in the Newtownshandrum camp over the past couple of days.
After a poor start on Sunday the North Cork side upped the ante, raced into a five-point lead at the break, and extended it to six within 10 minutes of the restart.
Few teams would have lived with Newtown during that sizzling spell, a fact acknowledged by O'Loughlin's mentor Mick Nolan.
"They were unreal, weren't they? Luckily for us, they seemed to run out of gas."
Illness and injury finally caught up with Ben and Jerry and when they drifted out of the game, no-one in green-and-gold stepped in to take up the slack.
"For a long period in the second half we were outplayed, out-thought," agreed Patsy Morrissey. "We lost the battle on the sideline, certain things we tried didn't go right for us. Still, it's hard to legislate for the loss of form of so many big players on the same day.
"We couldn't have asked for more of the O'Connors or Pat Mulcahy, but we have a lot of other good solid players who seemed to have an off-day together.
"Maybe it was nerves, maybe they went into containment mode, trying to defend the six-point lead, a dangerous thing to do as we've seen in so many other sports.
"Whatever it was, we seemed to sit back, but we didn't defend very well anywhere on the field. Since then we've had a good team meeting and it all went well, we know where we fell down, the things we didn't do, where we need to improve.
"It was all well and truly thrashed out, we're up for it again, ready for action. Now, if we can get 10 or 11 of the lads to play to their full potential we'll have a fierce team altogether!"
Mick Nolan has more or less the same prayer for the replay.
"I wouldn't know Newtownshandrum very well but there's more in us anyway.
A few of our big guns didn't fire the last day, some of our better players
didn't play that well. Hopefully, we'll get it right this time."
Horan to referee semi-final replay
PAT Horan of Offaly will referee Saturday’s All-Ireland hurling club championship semi-final replay between O’Loughlin Gaels and Newtownshandrum.
Given that Horan and Aidan Fogarty, one of the three-man O’Loughlin’s managerial team, are both originally from the St. Rynagh’s club in Banagher, the rumour mill was immediately in overdrive in the north Cork area, with stories of a schoolyard friendship, lifelong relationship. “Utter nonsense,” laughed a bemused Fogarty.
“He’s a few years older than me, I’m not quite sure we even went to the same school, to be honest.
“I don’t want to do him an injustice here but he was maybe three, four, even five years ahead of me.
“I just know him (Pat Horan) the way I’d know quite a few other Offaly people,” said Fogarty.
Newtown manager Patsy Morrissey said: “I have no problem whatsoever with the appointment of Pat Horan.”
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