Cork attacker Jack O’Connor says the rumour about him quitting county hurling for 2025 was a prank that went wrong and ‘just caught fire’.
O’Connor came on for Cork in last July’s All-Ireland final and the speedy forward will return to Croke Park this Sunday for an AIB All-Ireland club decider with Sarsfields.
His strong form has been a big part of the Glanmire outfit’s historic run and Cork boss Pat Ryan will be hoping he can keep it going at county level in the coming months.
But it seemed for a while over winter that he might be pulling away from the Rebels set-up to focus on travelling in 2025.
“That was actually a false rumour that was spread by one of the lads,” said O’Connor.
“I won’t be going travelling at all this year. In fairness to Pat, he’s been letting us off for the last few weeks so that we can focus on the club.
“I’m sure I’ll speak to him after the match on Sunday as regards to a plan.”
O’Connor explained how the rumour began.
“One of the work lads put up a story saying it and it just caught fire,” he said.
“I think Rob (Downey) reposted it and it just caught fire. There were people asking my parents and stuff down in the shop, am I going away? But no, I’m not going anywhere.”
It was just another curveball thrown at O’Connor in a remarkable 18 months or so.
From dealing with the devastation of severe flooding at the club’s Riverstown grounds in October of 2023, to the All-Ireland run with Cork in 2024 to losing a county final after that to then bouncing back and going on this run to the All-Ireland, it’s been some journey.
“It’s mad,” smiled O’Connor, who maintained that even losing that county final to divisional side Imokilly was never going to break their spirit.
“We felt that we didn’t do ourselves justice in that game. It was a few days after it when we got back to training for the Munster championship and we just said we’d have a go and see where it takes us. Here we are now.”
Beating Ballygunner in the Munster final underlined their All-Ireland credentials though there were nervous moments against Ulster champions Slaughtneil before Christmas in Newbridge.
Like O’Connor’s high tackle on a Slaughtneil player which brought a booking.
“They went mad in the stands,” he recalled of the Slaughtneil supporters.
“I thought, ‘Oh God, they might influence the ref here now’. But the linesman saw it thankfully and he said it wasn’t a red to the ref so I got away with a yellow. But it was a heart-in-the-mouth moment.”
Then, right at the death, Slaughtneil’s Mark McGuigan had the ball in his hand just metres from goal but fired over when a goal seemed a certainty. Sarsfields eventually won by a point.
“I missed that whole play because I had just hit off a fella a few seconds before it, fell over and cut my nose so I didn’t see it,” said O’Connor. “I looked up and just heard a big roar...ball over the bar. Look, we have been on the receiving end of those moments sometimes as well, where the ball goes into the net. Sometimes you need that bit of luck.”
There’ll probably be more drama on Sunday when they face Na Fianna of Dublin but one thing is sure, failing to win the county title hasn’t placed any sort of asterisk next to Sarsfields' achievements since.
“It didn’t really bother us if we were county champions or not,” said O’Connor. “Regardless of if you were county champions, to go on and be Munster champions, no, it wouldn’t bother me.”