By MARK CASHMAN

Warringah prop Rory O’Connor has always been a man of few words but he made an indelible statement with a man of the match performance in the Battle of the Beaches against Manly on Saturday.

O’Connor scrummaged strongly and did all the other prop stuff to his usual standards, but it was his running game that caught the eye in the Rats’ 40-14 win at Pittwater Rugby Park.

The 27-year-old made a number of telling breaks in general play, mostly through the middle of the field, with two of those leading to tries.

“It felt like I was a 22-year-old again,” O’Connor told Rugby News.

“I guess I am fitter than I have been in a while and that is probably putting me into areas of some games where that sort of stuff happens.”

O’Connor revealed that his playing weight was now around 110kg after being more than 120kg when he was contracted at the Waratahs.

He made the call not to chase a renewal of his deal at the Tahs last year and finish off his civil engineering degree and set himself up for life after the rugby is over.

“I suppose in some ways I felt that I was being buried a bit (in the prop pecking order at Daceyville) and needed to have my Plan B ready to go.”

He studied full-time last year and is combining his final couple of subjects with full-time work at KUSCH Consulting, a civil engineering firm that has offices in most Australian capital cities, this year.

O’Connor added: “I did a lot of running coming into the season and have adjusted what I eat and I must say that I’m feeling a hell of a lot better for it.

“My time at the Waratahs was great and I feel that I have come back to the Rats a better player.

“At Super Rugby there is a lot of detail that you need to be across for each game and I just feel my time there has made me better at managing other people and just having nous to be in the right place at the right time.”

Rats coach Mike Ruthven revealed that “derby talk” didn’t play a major role in the Rats preparations.

“Yeah we mentioned it I think on Monday at our meeting and the rest of the week was all about the detail we needed to be across to get the job done,” O’Connor added.

“In these sort of games you really can’t get too emotional or things slip away from you and you chew up energy in areas that don’t pay.

“It was good to get the win though as it was one that we really needed in terms of our season. If we had lost there would be an element of chasing the top six for the rest of the year.”

Manly started the scoring at a packed Rat Park with a try from a rolling maul to hooker James Hilterbrand but that would be as close as the Marlins got.

O’Connor started the ball rolling soon after with a five pointer and then Harry Anderson-Brown, Ben Marr, Hugh Margin and Charlie McKill added scores before Hilterbrand chimed in again.

Not far behind O’Connor in best on ground stakes was Margin who had an enormous game.

Working well at line out time and making a number of line breaks.

The only down side to the afternoon was the shoulder dislocation to skipper Marr – done in the scoring of the Rats third try.

Tough day for the Marlins who would not have had much to celebrate on Saturday night.

The making of a competent side is there but they drift out of games and that was the case on the weekend.

IMAGE: KAREN WATSON