Pauric Mahony hopes his 2025 season is only beginning after helping steer Ballygunner to a 12th consecutive Waterford senior hurling title in what was his first starting appearance of the campaign.
Mahony (33) has endured a frustrating season because of a back injury and only made his first contribution as a 50th minute sub in Ballygunner’s quarter-final victory over Passage last month.
The former Waterford captain then made a significant impact as a second-half sub in his side’s semi-final win over De La Salle, with his performance in that victory earning Mahony a starting role in last Sunday’s county final against Mount Sion.
He showed no sign of rustiness, scoring 0-11 (0-7f) and finishing the game as man of the match – his fifth such accolade in county finals.
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“I didn’t play any league games,” said Mahony. “I played a few minutes in the quarter-final and I suppose I was lucky enough that I got maybe 20 minutes under the belt in the semi-final, which allowed me then to be in a position for the lads to pick me for the final."
He wasn’t even in Ireland for much of last week in the build-up to the showdown against Mount Sion – as work took him to Germany.
“Some might say it could be disruptive but I kind of found it relaxing nearly,” he said. “We have a little baby at home in the house and you get more sleep when you’re away from home, so I actually think it nearly suited me.
“I haven’t been doing a huge amount of training this year, so it’s kind of trying to get the body right. When you’re away like that, you have a pool and you can do plenty of stretching and stuff like that and you have your time to yourself.”
It certainly didn’t do Mahony any harm as he delivered a tour de force. Aside from his scoring tally he also played a part in Ballygunner’s two goals on their way to a commanding 2-35 to 1-16 victory.
“He’s been instrumental to everything we’ve done as a senior team for the last 15, maybe even 16 years,” says Ballygunner goalkeeper Stephen O’Keeffe.
“The moment he ever decides to step away or if he goes down injured and we don’t have him in a team, we do lose a lot as a team without him in it, that’s for sure.”
Ballygunner’s attention will now turn to silverware beyond their county border. They won three Munster titles in-a-row between 2021-23 but relinquished their grip on the provincial crown to Sarsfields of Cork in last December’s decider.
Ballygunner will open their 2025 Munster club SHC against the eventual Limerick champions in the Gaelic Grounds on November 2nd.
“We were playing a good team in Sars last year. We’ve played Sars plenty of times over the years and it’s either we got on top or they got on top,” adds Mahony.
“We’ve played them probably five or six times in the last 10 years and they’re really, really good challenges. We knew going into that Sars game last year what to expect.
“If we didn’t perform, we wouldn’t win. And we didn’t perform. I suppose this year is no different now. Obviously we have to enjoy maybe the next week or two, just get the bodies right again and then get ready for the Limerick champions.
“We’re down to the Gaelic Grounds again, it’s a very, very tough place to go. We’ve been down there in the last couple of years and if we didn’t bring our best, we wouldn’t have come out the other side of it, so we know what’s ahead of us.”
It is fair to say that Ballygunner’s dominance of the Waterford hurling landscape isn’t exactly universally celebrated by others in the county. However, Mahony argues that the current success is the result of hard work stretching back many years.
“You hear so much of what they call the outside noise that you just try and block it out. But all you need to do is look at the players that we have on the pitch, it’s all come from the same core group that’s probably been together since we were five or six years of age.
“When we were starting out hurling with Ballygunner, there was very little there; we picked stones off the pitch to get the place ready so we’d have a second pitch. When this group of players were coming up, there wasn’t the numbers.
“It’s been in the last 10-15 years where the numbers have obviously blown up in the Ballygunner area.”
