Sweet sting to a bitter tale

No question, there was bitterness there. After Cork had defeated Galway for the second consecutive time in the All-Ireland under-21 final last year, the locals assured Mickey O'Connell he was a dead cert for the seniors. How could he not, after getting man of the match? John Fenton, Pat Hartnett, Kevin Hennessey, Denis Mulcahy, Mickey O'Connell . . . the latest prodigy in Midleton's rich history.

But when they called, it was to tell him his talents were surplus to current needs and when O'Connell hit the roads after Christmas, it was with his local club. Mates threw mystified murmurs of condolence his way.

"I was confused and disappointed, to be honest with you. I didn't know if I'd ever go back and play for Cork even if I was asked, there was so much bitterness within me. I was disillusioned with the scene and just didn't understand what was behind my exclusion," he said this week.

Mickey O'Connell is this summer's enigma - the man who watched the spring fare from the stands only to be called into the senior panel five weeks before the crunch game against Waterford.

He had been in scorching form for Midleton and word spilled through to the selectors. One evening, they turned up to see him blaze nine points against the county champions in the East Cork League.

"Jimmy (Barry-Murphy) called me and asked me could we meet face to face. He was someone I'd known from the minors and always regarded as a friend. I suppose I just couldn't turn my back on the chance to play senior hurling for Cork. Your spend your life dreaming of it. I felt I had to give it a crack."

Annoyance dissolved into apprehension as he made his way along to his first session. Sure, he'd known Joe Deane and Sean Og O hAilpin and others going way back to under-14 level. But still . . . what would they think?

"I never even dreamt then that I'd be starting given that it was five weeks before the championship and them having trained all winter. But it went okay and I felt like I was fitting in."

The Wednesday before the Waterford match, he was taking a stroll when a car pulled alongside him. Barry-Murphy. Told him to think of playing on Sunday. The words dizzied him.

"Then I figured it would be no great step up, having an All-Ireland level at underage. But when I ran through the tunnel, the roar turned my legs to jelly. Shaking. I was just trying to get my head clear. And then I saw Tony Browne, this absolutely amazing hurler I'd been watching all last summer. I just said to myself, `you better wake up or you're wasting your time here'. If I didn't touch the ball, but neither did he, I'd have been happy enough."

But instead he went all fiction. Eight points on the day kind of stuff. A few 65s and a sideline cut for good measure. "I picked a team of hurlers," Barry-Murphy would say afterwards. And boy, did the diminutive newcomer give it some wood, collar up-turned and eyes all purpose, like he'd been there for years.

"There was no pressure on me that day, see," explains O'Connell. "That came the next day against Clare. By then, if I'd flopped, I'd have been written of as a one-game wonder. So I went in with the same attitude, just to try and contain Colin Lynch. And I think we broke even. No one really excelled."

O'Connell, though, nailed five points and Cork stormed Munster. "It was like the days in the '80s that I used watch when I was a kid," he tells you. "It was all hurling. My father would bring me down to watch the greats train in the town and in the summer, I'd go to Limerick where I had two uncles, Jimmy and Brendan Carr, who hurled a bit with the county. The game was never far from your thoughts."

And here he is now, in the eye of the storm. Offaly await and though the last few months of his life have been seeped in learning, O'Connell is as clueless as the rest of the universe in figuring his opponents out.

"They are a strange bunch. They really don't seem all that concerned with Leinster finals. I mean, they are right back where they were this time last year. We just hope that they don't turn it on the next day. It'll be a rare old tussle no matter what."

Once again, he will shoulder up against the personalities who lit up last season.

"Well, Offaly have Johnny Pilkington at midfield, but, I mean, Paudie Mulhare has been there and Johnny Dooley and Michael Duignan as well, so it's a matter of waiting. Just because a lad has 8 or 9 on his back doesn't mean he'll stay there. Myself and Mark (Landers) will wait 'til it settles and then pick one each."

The days since July 4th have passed slowly. Cork were on a roll after winning Munster, hell, they'd have welcomed a semi-final had it been scheduled for midnight the same evening. "We were just on a high," recalls O'Connell. "We wanted the games to keep coming."

They have bided time, keeping fresh and going hard in squad games played behind closed doors. Kept so quiet we almost forgot about them.

"We really can't wait now," says the man who waited longer than most.