GAME FOR ANYTHING
Busy O’connor hopes the matches keep on coming
THE games keep coming for Gearoid O’connor – and he wouldn’t have it any other way.
A brilliant start to the Allianz Hurling League campaign for O’connor and Tipperary has seen the Moynetempletuohy man hit 0-12 and 1-13 in their wins over Dublin and Galway respectively, while he has been central to UL’S run in the Fitzgibbon Cup.
Last Wednesday he slotted 0-8 in their win over UCC, which sent them into tomorrow night’s semi-final against University of Galway in Clare.
Should they win that, the final will take place in Abbeydorney on Saturday afternoon.
“I think it’s great – I don’t have to do any training on Tuesday night so I’m missing out on all the running,” smiled O’connor after his starring role against Galway on Sunday.
“Like any player, you just want to be playing matches and, to be fair to the lads, they are very accommodating, both sets of management are very good with linking over. I’m just happy to be playing these matches – the more, the better.”
O’connor hit the only goal of the game against Galway, a late penalty to put the seal on a
1-26 to 0-24 win, though boss Liam
Cahill suggested afterwards that “the sensible thing to do was go for a point”.
“I didn’t know what to do so I said I’d go for goal but thankfully it went in,” said O’connor. “Other days it could have got saved. I was just lucky.”
Although they ran out five-point winners, it was a game that Tipp made hard work of having held five and eight-point leads in either half, with Galway eventually coming back to level the game late on.
Additionally, there were goal chances which went awry in the first half that, if converted, would have left no way back for Henry Shefflin’s side.
“We were disappointed that we didn’t convert them but we were still very happy that we were making the goal chances. A few lads were unlucky with the way ball broke,” said O’connor.
“We could have been a good bit ahead by half-time and we did leave a lot of chances behind us but we’ve plenty to work on over the next few weeks.”
With two wins already, another pair of victories from their three remaining Division 1B games against Westmeath, Limerick and Tipperary would almost certainly be enough to secure a League semi-final spot.
O’connor added: “We planned on building from the very beginning of the League to get a good run through the year. We just march on now.”