Pauric Mahony smiles even as the question is in its infancy. He’s heard it before. The Ballygunner puzzler – where have they been all these years?
Sunday will only be Ballygunner’s second appearance in an All-Ireland club senior hurling final. Second. For a club with more Munster club SHC titles than any other. Second. For a club with more Munster club SHC final appearances than any other.
Ballygunner have won a record six Munster club crowns and lost another 10 finals. They have contested nine of the last 10 provincial deciders, including the last eight (there was no competition in 2020). They have won four of the last five.
They are currently on a 12-in-a-row championship winning streak in Waterford. And yet Ballygunner have only managed to navigate a path to an All-Ireland decider on one previous occasion – 2022.
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That decider in February 2022 will forever be remembered as the day Harry Ruddle etched his name in the annals of GAA history with a last-gasp goal to beat Ballyhale Shamrocks. But until now that has remained Ballygunner’s only dance on club hurling’s biggest day.
They have lost four All-Ireland semi-finals – Clarinbridge (2002), Ballyhale Shamrocks (2019 & 2022 [December]) and St Thomas’ (2023). The judgment often tossed in their direction is that one All-Ireland title from this golden period has been an underachievement.
“We’re not looking at the stats of what we’ve won and what we’ve lost or anything like that,” says Pauric Mahony.
“You’re living in the now and it would be selfish of us as a group to think that we have to win a second All-Ireland when there are a lot of lads in our squad who haven’t won any All-Ireland.
“We’ve had great days and we’ve had bad days but if we’re going back to that looking for motivation or new energy, it’s probably not fair on the younger lads who have come into the set-up.
“And we obviously have new management this year who weren’t involved on previous days either, so I suppose as a whole it’s kind of a fresh approach.
“It’s not about numbers or it’s not about getting a second one, it’s just about winning this match.”
“It’s about living in the now. Maybe in time we could back and say we overachieved or we underachieved. But whatever occurs, we have to give our best, do our best preparation and ensure you are doing your best every time you go out on the pitch.”
But there has been a difference to Ballygunner’s swagger during this campaign, they’ve hurled with the confidence of a team with clarity in what they are about rather hurling like a side fearful of coming up short in their All-Ireland ambitions.
They trailed St Martin’s of Wexford by two points in last month’s All-Ireland semi-final and it would have been understandable if doubts started to seep under the door of the Ballygunner dressingroom.
But instead they delivered a powerful second-half display to run out 0-19 to 0-10 winners.
“Some people maybe make a bit more out of the games we might not have won over the last number of years [at that stage of the competition] but you’re playing teams of a top-quality standard,” adds the former Waterford captain.
“It’s an All-Ireland semi-final or a Munster final, so your opponent is there on merit. You’re playing against the best teams in the country and I’ve always been very much grounded in terms of our preparation going into any game to say, ‘With this opposition, if we aren’t bringing our best, we will not be winning here.’
“That’s the way we’ve always been and going in at half-time the last day some people might have said, ‘Jesus, Ballygunner aren’t on it here,’ but if you look back at the game, the level of intensity that St Martin’s brought was huge.
“At half-time, we were saying to ourselves, ‘Look if we don’t start contributing more on this scoreboard, we’re not going to be coming out of here with a victory and we’ll have no All-Ireland final to be preparing for.’
“I suppose once we got momentum behind us in the second half, we took our chances and we kept the scoreboard ticking over, which I think that was key because we didn’t give them any oxygen once we did get on top.”
Galway champions Loughrea will provide the opposition in Sunday’s Croke Park decider, a game that should prove highly entertaining for neutrals.
But it is fair to say that Ballygunner’s ownership of the Waterford senior hurling championship – as would be the case with any club anywhere in the country – ensures they are probably not the most popular side with neutrals in their own county.
However, it’s not a popularity contest Ballygunner are trying to win this weekend. They’ve been long enough waiting to get back here, it’s about delivering in the final now on Sunday.
“Obviously, we have a strong community and a strong group there in Ballygunner and ultimately that’s all that matters for us, the people that we’re hanging around day to day.
“We’re going up to the hurling pitch to train and there’s obviously a huge support there in Ballygunner. I suppose I understand sometimes if a team is dominating that everyone likes an underdog story or everyone wants to see maybe a change in terms of winning county titles and what not.
“But I suppose for us, we’re not too bothered. We’re just a group of players trying to maximise our days on the hurling pitch and try to be as successful as we possibly can because it’s not going to be there forever.”
♦ The AIB All-Ireland Senior Hurling Club final between Ballygunner (Waterford) and Loughrea (Galway) takes place in Croke Park on Sunday at 1.30pm. The game will be shown live on TG4.
