Dec 03,2024
Jack O'Connor says Sarsfields’ shock Munster success in dethroning three-in-a-row champions Ballygunner was a thank you to everyone who helped the club through some difficult years.
In October 2023, the club’s home pitch and clubhouse were destroyed by flooding during Storm Babet.
For the past year, their hurlers have travelled all over Cork, borrowing pitches from other clubs for training sessions.
They went 12 months without training on home turf until their Riverstown ground reopened in recent weeks.
The club has also suffered the loss of club stalwarts as well as legendary dual star Teddy McCarthy.
"It’s been an incredible two years since the lads came in," says O’Connor.
"There was people passing away, Teddy, Cathal McCarthy’s father, the clubhouse being flooded last year, we’ve gone through a lot in fairness.
"The committee in the club are amazing. It’s outstanding seeing what they’ve done for the club for the last few weeks, few months, and even the last few years.
"It was nearly a thanks to the way we performed for them, for our friends, our family, our clubmates, everyone."
Sars lost their Cork title to divisional side Imokilly in October and some hard decisions were made before the Munster campaign.
They abandoned their sweeper system and made big changes down the spine of their team. Just as important as the change in strategy was the switch in mentality.
"The main thing is management said we’re going to go brave on it. We’re going to go man-on-man, 15-on-15 here," says O’Connor.
"We’re going to push up completely because we know the influence of Stephen O’Keeffe. He’s an outstanding goalie and he’s nearly like the playmaker, the quarterback in the backs.
"So we said every man is responsible for his own man and throughout the pitch, we got the best out of each other that way.
"We all made a promise to ourselves that we're going to go out there and work like dogs. Every single ball, we’re going to chase and hassle and harry.
"It paid off, thank God."
O’Connor led the way by scoring 1-02 and through his work rate. He made inspirational blocks on Mikey Mahony and Conor Sheahan which resulted in back-to-back points for Daniel Kearney and Daniel Hogan.
As coach Diarmuid O’Sullivan said, they "out-gunnered Ballygunner" to complete a 21-point turnaround from last year’s drubbing against Waterford kingpins.
"Last year was a shocking game but looking back on it, we didn’t feel we did ourselves justice. We didn’t believe that we were a team 17 points worse than Ballygunner," insists O’Connor.
"It was tough losing a county final to Imokilly but in a weird way, it is nearly a good thing because you are going into the Munster Championship with nothing to lose. There is no pressure on you.
"Nobody expected anything of us at all. We were rank outsiders. Our thing all week was that we are going to give it everything and our work rate was going to be our number one mantra.
"You could see there with the turnovers, the tackling, and the scores we got from the turnovers, it changed everything and set the tone for us for the whole game.
"If you apply enough pressure, a team is going to break down eventually. When you have two Sars men for every one Ballygunner man, they are always going to struggle.
"That's what got us over the line."
Was it his greatest day ever on a hurling field?
"It’s up there definitely, yeah," O’Connor replies. "It’d be tough to beat that anyway."
They’ll have the opportunity to do so in the All-Ireland series, starting with a semi-final against Ulster champions Slaughtneil.
