Clonmel Ace O’Connor Eyeing Top Four Finish

Whether he has gone by Josef, Joe, or Joey, O’Connor has produced some standout performances since joining Division 2C outfit Clonmel from Fethard & District ahead of the 2023/24 season.

Amassing 164 points so far this season, he has started every game for Eoin O’Connor’s men and produced some match-winning performances along the way, including a last-gasp penalty at Monkstown, and a 19-point haul against Belfast Harlequins.

He scored the only try of the game in their draw with Dolphin, and last week stepped up to convert two tries as Clonmel won an absorbing battle with Ballyclare, finishing as 19-17 winners.

A scrum half all the way up through playing with Fethard and Rockwell College, O’Connor shifted to out-half when he was 18 and has developed into one of the All-Ireland League’s most-skilled kickers.

With 60 successful place-kicks during the current campaign between conversions (31) and penalties (29), he told IrishRugby.ie that his full focus is on making sure the team does well regardless of his scoring exploits.

“I take great pride in that of course, but I try not to think too much about it because the main concern is that the team does well,” he said. “Whether that’s taking the three points or kicking it to touch, I’m happy to do either.

“I would have done a lot of kicking for posts even when I was at nine. I’ve just always been doing this since I was young and was fairly used to doing it in matches and things like that.

“I wasn’t starting for the Junior or Senior Cup teams. I would have been on ‘B’ teams, and I was kicking for posts on those teams.

“Kicking out of hand was a bit different because I never used to kick for touch, but I suppose it’s a bit easier to teach yourself rather than try to kick for a goal from scratch. But it’s been alright, I think, so far.

“When I was younger, me and my cousins would be out kicking all the time. A few of my friends and myself would be kicking, and then when we played together, I just seemed to be picked by the coaches for it. I just ended up being the one who stuck at it the most.”

Rugby was always a big sport in O’Connor’s family and he is following in the footsteps of his dad Hugh in playing for Clonmel. He is also a first cousin of Ireland international Dorothy Wall.

He played dual-status back at the tail end of the 2022/23 season to cover injuries, getting a taste for the All-Ireland League while helping out Fethard & District too.

A Munster Junior Interprovincial campaign followed in 2023 before he switched fully to Clonmel that summer. Making the step up to AIL level, O’Connor admits that the ‘fitness and amount of phases’ were the biggest differences from playing junior rugby.

“In senior rugby even though I was doing my pre-season and all that, I just wasn’t used to that extended phase play and just how long it actually goes on for, and how teams initially bring it the whole game,” he explained.

“Whereas in junior games, you could have your team put away within the first half. That’s just kind of the biggest difference I found.

We had a lot of games last year where we were comfortable at half-time, and then I was probably guilty, and a few others, of just taking the foot off a bit. Jeez, we gave up a few massive leads last year.

“In the AIL matches, we have all set plays where you’re thinking three, four, five phases ahead. Whereas in junior, it’s kind of just like, ‘Oh, we have a scrum. We’re gonna run this move and see how it goes from there’.

“It’s a lot different, I think in junior you can just make up things as you go along, and it’ll be fine. But in senior, you can’t just be picking a ball from 10 and carrying it all the time.

“You have to actually be able to see things, pass around, distribute, and make plays. So it was definitely a lot different, it did take me a good while to get used to it, but I had Patrick, our backs coach, last year, so he definitely helped me read the game a bit more.

“Even looking into those videos that you get of each game, we never did that in Fethard. So just even watching the game back and realising what you could have done differently and seeing spaces, definitely, I used to think a bit more about it.”

In his player profile from this season, O’Connor remarked that his secret talent is being able to sleep standing up. That could well be linked to his cool and composed displays when stepping up to take a pressure kick at goal for Clonmel.

Nothing seems to phase the 25-year-old, and while many might put on headphones and listen to a chosen playlist during kicking practice before games, he instead chooses to soak in the sounds around him.

“I try not to think about things too much. There was a year three or four years ago in Fethard I wasn’t kicking too well,” admitted the Clonmel sharpshooter.

“It was overthinking, looking at things on the ground and looking around, and not kicking the ball and not worrying about what happens. I don’t like to think about too much, putting too much pressure on when I am taking the kicks.

“I like to just put the ball down, relax a bit, and kind of see it going over in my head and imagining the kind of reaction that you get, more so than imagining me missing.

“I kind of just prefer the hard kicks because there’s no pressure. No one’s thinking you’re going to get it. No one expects you to get it. It’s more the ones down the middle that I’d be scared about.

“I wouldn’t even listen to music when practising or warming up. I like to just go out and listen to the noise around me. Just kick away. I like to go to a few spots that I know maybe I’ve missed before, or some side that I might be a bit weak on just to iron it out a bit.

“But other than that, I really think I’m happy enough the way my thinking process goes when I’m kicking. You get a few whispers from away supporters as you’re walking down, but as you’re actually kicking the ball, they wouldn’t say anything.

“They kind of throw a few jabs at you when you’re walking back or putting the ball down. I just try to laugh it off, not really paying too much attention to it.”

Last season Clonmel finished seventh in Division 2C, winning just two matches during the second half of the season. They flirted with relegation trouble and ended up finishing just five points above the bottom two.

It has been some turnaround this season, however, as the Tipperary side have already surpassed their points total from last term with 39, and have one more win (7) on the board.

Lying fifth in the table at present, just two points behind Dolphin, each of final five league fixtures is a big one. They travel to Belfast Harlequins on Saturday, aiming to complete a season’s double over the Ulstermen.

Clonmel have a crunch round 16 clash with Dolphin to come, along with Monkstown visiting Ardgaoithe in between. They end the regular season with a trip to Tullamore before hosting Omagh Academicals, a team they narrowly lost to at the start of the campaign.

The learnings from last season have seen Clonmel really put it up to teams in 2024/25. O’Connor remains hopeful of getting the results to see them finish in the top four despite Division 2C being arguably the most competitive it ever has been.

“I think the average age of our team is nearly 23. I’d be one of the older lads in the team, and I’m 25. A lot of them are in college. It was their first year, and it was my first year really playing senior too,” he reflected.

A lot of that was just getting used to playing together and things about each other. But this year now, you definitely can see that they have that extra year, and we had learned from a lot of those tough losses and comebacks last year.

“There’s a lot of games that we’ve won this year that I know for a fact we wouldn’t have won last year. Just sticking in the fight and grinding it out. It’s nice to see that we have improved and have won more of those tight games.

“I know our season’s goal at the start of the year was to not be beaten at home. Now we did have that one against Enniscorthy, but other than that, we’ve had a draw with Dolphin at home and then won every other game at home, Senior Cups included.

“We want to try to win all our home games at least. We did slip up to Omagh at the start of the year, which could cost us at the end of the year.”

O’Connor added: “We’d like to imagine those final two, we need to be getting four, five points from those and then try to get something out of those two away against Belfast Harlequins and Dolphin, along with Monkstown at home.

“Dolphin have been throwing up some fairly high scores down on that astro, so we’ll definitely have to get ready for that one as well.

“Whad six wins all last year, only two after Christmas, and we’re already at seven. So even if we can finish at nine, ten wins for the year and win all our remaining home games, we would be hoping that would put us in a good position to make the top four.

“If we don’t, that’s the way it goes. It is probably the most competitive Division 2C has been in a while, so we’d understand that. But I definitely still want to make the top four, and that’s still our plan.”

– Photos courtesy of Schira Lane and Paul Morris

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