Rory O'Connor has revealed how he unwittingly snubbed Wexford manager Davy Fitzgerald’s call-up a couple of years ago.
Fitzgerald had been keen for the talented St Martin’s youngster to link up with his brother Jack in the Wexford senior panel in 2017 but it was put on the back burner as he was studying for his Leaving Cert at the time.
O’Connor explained: “I was called in for the start of the year meeting and I was obviously mad to go in and Mam and Dad were like, ‘Look, you’ve your Leaving Cert’.
“I wanted to go off on holidays and all after the Leaving Cert and do all these kind of things and I said, ‘Look, sure I’ll leave it off, there’s plenty of years ahead of me’ and then in May we had the club season, we had a hurling match and we were playing Oulart and I got on fairly well.
Rory O'Connor believes inter-county players will be paid in the future
“Then I got a text message off Davy and at the time in sixth year, lads would be messing around.
“I said, ‘Good man Davy’ and three laughy faces! He rang me then in class and then I text Jack asking him what’s Davy Fitz’s number. They matched.”
The son of Wexford’s 1996 hero John is very much a key part of the team now and feels that their prospects are underrated ahead of the Championship.
He added: “Lads would send stuff onto you showing that you are whatever position to win the All-Ireland. You are last. You are tenth. You are ninth.
“I seen another thing with Joe Canning out of Leinster injured, who is going to take the Leinster final, and sure we were last in the percentage too.
“That kind of thing is absolutely driving us on, and all I know is if we can put 70 minutes together back-to-back it’s definitely within our reach to win a Leinster final this year.”
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