Ballygunner push merciless standards in search of another All-Ireland
Cement Second Ballygunner Legacy To Their Sutton Need A Title Ireland Holy Picture: ©inpho/ken All Grail:
Shortly after Ballygunner had beaten Abbeyside-Ballinacourty by 18 points in the county final in September to secure an 11th Waterford title in succession, Dessie Hutchinson cleared his throat. Something had lodged in his chest and stuck in his gullet. So Hutchinson coughed it up and spat it straight out.
“Honestly, this is the sweetest one yet for us,” he said. “Everyone, for some reason, wrote us off this week. All the talk was about Abbeyside, how they were going to end this (record) and how they were going to beat us. When you do that to us, it’s a dangerous game.”
It is but who was playing that game? Who in their right mind would write off Ballygunner?
“You’d be surprised down here,” said Hutchinson on Colm Parkinson’s ‘Smaller Fish GAA’ podcast a few weeks later.
“The week of the match, I never saw anything like it. Some people were convinced Abbeyside were going to topple us. It gave us extra motivation.”
The great teams always look for an edge somewhere, but Ballygunner have set such a standard in Waterford and Munster now that their most important legacy has already gone beyond medals won or glory gained — it is about the attitude instilled in the group, the standards demanded. The example set by this squad as an entity.
“You’re always looking for extra bits of motivation when you’re on the road as long as we are,” said Hutchinson to Parkinson. “There are some lads who came in this year that didn’t have a senior medal. To give them that experience was a huge motivation for us.
“It also lets them see what it’s like in our group, of what they’re coming into, and how to act. If they want to be successful in our group, they follow the way that we do things.”
It’s about driving those merciless standards to the next level again. It is about more than just winning. And yet, it’s everything about winning another All-Ireland. This is the greatest club team Munster has ever seen but this group still needs that second All-Ireland title to cement their legacy alongside some of Munster’s other great teams.
Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City is one of the greatest club teams ever, but their legacy is far more secure since they added a Champions League title to the six Premier Leagues won under Guardiola.
Ballygunner already have won an All-Ireland but their greatness demands more. They want more. They need more. The know they are the best club team left in the All-Ireland championship. But they have to go and prove it outside of Munster.
That hurt of coming up short in the last two All-Ireland semi-finals continues to power them forward. Last year’s defeat to St Thomas’ after penalties was all the more painful again because Ballygunner cracked first; Thomas’ conversion rate from placed balls was 87% compared to the Gunners’ 54%. That carried into the shootout, which Thomas’ won 4-2.
Once more, a harrowing All-Ireland semi-final defeat stalled an irresistible momentum. Last year, Ballygunner became the first club to win three Munster titles-in-a-row. They’re unbackable favourites now to win a fourth in succession.
Since Ballyguner began this run in Waterford in 2015, going 60 matches unbeaten, there have only been two occasions when they were close to being taken out; De la Salle drew with them in 2016, while Mount Sion ran them to two points in the 2021 semi-final.
In their other 58 matches, a team only got to within six points of Ballygunner on just 11 occasions. After that scare against Mount Sion in 2021, the closest any team came to the Gunners in Waterford over the following two seasons was 8 points.
They’ve been just as dominant in Munster over the last four seasons, having only been really pushed four times in 11 games. They look stronger than ever but there is bound to be wear and tear after so long on the road. Their five main players – Stephen O’Keeffe, Barry Coughlan, Philip and Pauric Mahony and Shane O’Sullivan – are over 32, while Ian Kenny is 31.
One of the main criticisms after the St Thomas’s defeat was that Ballygunner didn’t use their bench more. They ran the bench against Abbeyside and Loughmore-Castleiney but in a tight game against Doon, they used just two subs, both of which were introduced in the last five minutes. They have the backup but they still trust their top 17 players to get them where they want and need to go.
The journey goes on. Losing to the eventual All-Ireland champions (Ballyhale Shamrocks beat them in the 2022-’23 semi-final) in successive years only increased the torture last December given how close Ballygunner have been to dominating this era on the only stage that really matters to this group anymore.
Yet Ballygunner have to get back there first. In the meantime, more provincial history is within their grasp.