Jack O'Connor: Hurling, farming and getting Wexford to the next level

“George would always keep you guessing, it was no different when we were younger,” Jack recalls with a smile, “we thought the best way to get faster was to run up the hill. George had us sprint down it. He said it’s easy to run up. You can control it. If you want to get faster, going down fast means you have to find a way to get your legs up, so you don’t fall over. The six of us would be absolutely flying down after hearing that.” 

He has two brothers, Harry and current Wexford senior Rory. His cousin Joe hurls as well. George’s son, Barry, moved to Australia to pursue an AFL career and still lives there now. Another cousin Paddy is a few months older and a reliable sounding board when they tip around the yard in the jeep. Their world was hurling and farming. The seasons change but that stays the same.

O’Connor is in Cork for work. He is currently a director for MSD Animal Health. ‘Fitbit for cows,’ is how he playfully describes it. The company sell technology and services for animal healthcare. He deals directly with vets and farmers. They are a tribe he knows well and increasingly a tribe under strain.

“You have to consider what is going on outside of farming, it is impacted by global factors. Russia and Ukraine, that drove up the price of heat inputs like oil. So that skyrocketed things like feed and fertilizer for Irish farmers. Now we did see milk prices go sky high as well, up nearly 100%. Farmers were getting good money in 2022. Business was good, the weather was nice, people were happy, a great year.

“2023 was the opposite. Milk prices slipped back. Weather was challenging, yields weren’t as high, but the costs remained high. If you remember October 2023, it got very wet, cows came in, so farmers have been stretched ever since. The problem is they can’t get cows onto grass, no different to hurling suppose. We’ve all been training in muck and sloop wondering when is this going to end? Farmers are very resilient, rural Ireland is resilient, but they do need the weather to break.” 

What can they do? Just keep going. O’Connor’s creed. He knows farmers are concerned. He sees the knock-on effect it has on colleagues. One has even taken to studying weather fronts and all kinds of charts as he urgently awaits the clouds parting. It will turn, O’Connor stresses.

He is speaking prior to their shock defeat to Antrim last week. Yet you can just imagine how integral his positive influence will be as they look to bounce back against Galway now. The 30-year-old is named on the bench for this crunch clash. He is one of a strong cohort of stalwarts in the squad who can help weather this storm.

Mark Fanning, Matthew O’Hanlon and Liam Óg McGovern are the eldest. Lee Chin and O’Connor come after. The likes of Conor McDonald, Liam Ryan and Kevin Foley are just behind. Everyone one of them started in the 2019 Leinster final triumph. Galway have a similar spine remaining from their 2017 All-Ireland victory. The clock is ticking for them both.

As it happens, O’Connor’s career started against Galway. A 2013 winter challenge in Mullingar under Liam Dunne. Fired into midfield against giant Iarla Tannion with a basic instruction: “’Keep it simple, trust your hurling.’ I got on fine in the end. I actually played with Keith (Rossiter) at the time.” He sticks to the same process now. His driven style is indivisible from his personality. As he gets out of the car, the St Martin’s man takes a look at the sun and considers its temperature. Still not hot enough. If it was, the hurl would come out of the boot and under the car. He couldn’t tolerate the possibility of it drying out.

Local maker Philip Doyle of L’Ash Go Leor is his supplier. The same man makes hurls for several of their frontliners. Each stick comes with a branded symbol and a moniker. Chin’s is Evolution. O’Hanlon’s is Combat. Diarmuid O’Keeffe was Sniper. O’Connor is The Ranger.

The hurl is his regulator. In their league draw with Clare earlier this year, Wexford conceded a second-half score after O’Connor conceded a free while chasing a cross field ball and fouling Cathal Malone. As he recalls that error, it is evident he is still irritated by it. Immediately afterwards, he slapped his bas as a reset trigger. In additional time, he struck a late leveller.

He was only cleared to play in that game after a red card issued against Offaly was successfully appealed. That tie finished in a draw too. He was sent off two minutes after coming on for allegedly interfering with an opponent’s helmet.

In the moment he was crushed. Post-match he stood in front of the group and apologised for letting them down. The notion of it cut him to the core. Later he saw the video and realised it was the wrong call. It made sleeping that bit easier, the verdict was duly rescinded.

This campaign marks a decade of intercounty service. The versatile athlete emerged as part of that U21 golden crop, but senior came calling first.

“It is a funny one, I was part of the senior squad before U21. I was a minor in 2012. There were trials when JJ Doyle took over U21 in 2013. I didn’t make the original cut and was put on the second-string team; the intention was we’d attend once a week I kept it up, but I stopped going because of the Leaving Cert.

“But I joined the senior panel in November and I played U21 the following February. I got all the senior training which developed me faster for that U21 team. We’d a really good group of players. You get out what you put in. We got to All-Ireland finals but didn’t get across the line.

“We came across Clare in 2014. It was new territory for us, I suppose trying to adapt, not everyone had a fantastic game. I was poor that day but learned loads. 10 or 12 hurled well but we came short. The following year there was a bit of, maybe not expectation, but pressure. We got through a Leinster final, beat Kilkenny and came up against a really strong bunch of Limerick hurlers. We’ve seen what that group have gone on to achieve.” 

He is only one 1994 player left in the panel. Aidan Nolan’s departure means 1993 isn’t represented either. Comrades like Paul Morris and Shaun Murphy have left the scene. Before a recent challenge with Kilkenny, someone in the dressing room informed him he was the oldest player in the starting side. Another new prospect revealed he was born in 2003. The walls started spinning. The ground is shifting beneath his feet.

Not that he didn’t see it coming. His band once heralded the change. A conversation with Conor McDonald at the conclusion of their final campaign is embedded in his mind. “We kind of looked at each other and said this is the start of our journey with Wexford. Can we do anything? It is up to us.” In 2019 they delivered. Purple and gold flooded across Croke Park to celebrate the first Bob O’Keeffe Cup in 15 years. They'd arrived.

“It wasn’t even relief; it was confirming that we can do it. Confirming that everything we worked towards for a few years will pay off. When you are U21, we were always in a Leinster final and two All-Irelands, so you think we should be able to get up to it.

“We can compete and you quickly learn in sport the opportunities don’t come every year. It took a week or two to digest in 2019 but eventually, it gave me great confidence that the hard work we put in got us to a place. It was nice to cash in on the hard yards done for five years or more before that.” 

That can’t be it. Rossiter’s arrival signalled an injection of talent the back-to-back U20 Leinster finalists. O’Connor just wants to ensure they do themselves justice. That they give everything they have.

“I think it was around 2020 and 2021 where I started to think… We lost to Galway during Covid. 2021 then, we lost to Kilkenny in extra-time. Opportunities are slipping by here; you know we only have a small window. See when Covid started and I was 25, so I suppose part of you thinks there is loads of time. In 2021 we ended up losing to Clare in the backdoor. For me personally the best way to go to the top is win the province, go in at the top. During Covid, I was thinking I’ve another five years until I’m 30. Now suddenly it is here. It does feel like time is ticking by.

“Now I’d be strong-minded. I wouldn’t let it interfere with my approach. If anything, it drives you on more. This is what I am trying to do to get to the next level. Limerick beat us off the field in 2015 and initially, I was very upset to not win an All-Ireland at U21. But I know I hadn’t left anything behind, I made my peace with it. They were just better. I couldn’t do any more. I just knew I did everything I could and came up against players at another level.

“If I can leave the jersey in a better place and know I gave everything, that I had no real regrets, I’d be happy. For example, I honestly didn’t have regrets about U21. We won a Leinster final. We gave it our all. That’s the goal.”