{"id":31826,"date":"2025-08-29T23:54:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T23:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/31826\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T23:54:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T23:54:08","slug":"ben-oconnor-will-be-backed-by-trusted-assistants-like-ronan-curran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/31826\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben O’Connor will be backed by trusted assistants like Ronan Curran"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n During his playing days, Ben O\u2019Connor valued the counsel of Ronan Curran in the dressing-room and so it\u2019s hardly a surprise that the St Finbarr\u2019s man has been a valued consigliere in his coaching career.\n <\/p>\n

\n When O\u2019Connor was Cork U20 hurling manager in 2023 and 2024, Curran was among his selectors, with players impressed with the former centre-back\u2019s feedback and video analysis, among other qualities.\n <\/p>\n

Now, it seems that the three-time All-Star centre-back \u2013 who has managed his home club and Kanturk, as well as serving as Ballincollig coach this year \u2013 will be part of O\u2019Connor\u2019s management team when it is confirmed next Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

\"BallincolligBallincollig coach Ronan Curran. Picture: David Creedon<\/p>\n

\n In the book Cork Hurling: Game of My Life, O\u2019Connor outlined how he ensured Curran was close at hand.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIn every dressing room I went into, I had my spot and I always had to be within two or three seats of that,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n

\n

Alongside me, I\u2019d have Ronan Curran on one side of me and Brian Murphy on the other.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n “That\u2019s the way it was, we\u2019d always sit together and most fellas were the same. They\u2019d have a place they\u2019d go that they were used to.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe used to talk away. You\u2019d see some fellas inside there with their earphones on and Curran would be like that after a while, he\u2019d listen to a bit of music, but there was always a bit of craic going on. The way we hurled, if fellas were relaxed they\u2019d hurl away mad, but if you were uptight, you couldn\u2019t. We had no fellas that were not talkers, really.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"WHEREWHERE IS ALL BEGAN: Ben O’Connor in league action against Down in 1999, his breakthrough season. Picture: Denis Minihane.<\/p>\n

\n It is believed that Terence McCarthy (Midleton) and O\u2019Connor\u2019s fellow Newtownshandrum man William Biggane will also be in the management, as they were for the U20s, with Biggane having succeeded Anthony Nash at the end of 2023.\n <\/p>\n

NEW ADDITION<\/p>\n

\n The one new addition would appear to be Niall O\u2019Halloran. The Ballinhassig native has built quite a portfolio, winning county titles with Bandon, \u00c9ire \u00d3g, Fr O\u2019Neills and Lisgoold as well as serving as Cork minor coach under John Considine and also being involved with MTU Cork in recent years.\n <\/p>\n

\n In that book, O\u2019Connor chose the 2008 All-Ireland SHC win over Galway as the match he remembered with most fondness.\n <\/p>\n

\n An episode near the end summed up the band-of-brothers nature of that team and one imagines that the new management will look to instil a similar solidarity.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI remember with about two minutes to go, we were defending, up a point or two, and a ball broke into our corner-back position,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI was back there and I went to go for it. I made a burst for it and I got a cramp \u2013 and very few times did I cramp up during a match.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI still tried to go for it and, next thing, this fella shot by me and said, \u201cI\u2019ll get there, I\u2019ll get there,\u201d \u2013 it was Curran. He saw that I was after getting the cramp and he got there.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During his playing days, Ben O\u2019Connor valued the counsel of Ronan Curran in the dressing-room and so it\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[24,18,129,19,17,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-31826","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-cork-gaa","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-hurling","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}