Walsh turns sights on new goal

IT WAS billed as the club hurling showdown of the decade, and Ballyhale Shamrocks celebrated their victory in true Kilkenny fashion; a few high-fives, three cheers for the opposition, and then talk of getting back to playing as soon as possible.

They may have moved to the top of the all-time roll of honour with five titles, but listening to Ballyhale manager Michael Fennelly afterwards you’d swear it was just another day in the office.

“Five All-Ireland club titles, for a small rural parish, is an amazing achievement,” said Fennelly, without once raising a smile. “We are only drawing from five, six or seven families. But there is a great hurling tradition down there and we hope to keep it going. They want to win. They’re mad for hurling.”

They said Ballyhale were mad alright when Portumna beat

them in last year’s semi-final, comfortably, but Fennelly played down the significance of that, even if there was no denying it.

“The boys were very hurt. Afterwards, you read everything, but things went wrong for them. They weren’t tuned in – 50-50 balls didn’t go their way, and passes were going astray. They worked on that. We showed them the DVD last Sunday and that stuck in their minds.

“If we made those mistakes again we’d have been blown out

of it again. Instead, they counteracted everything. The backs played wonderful, and there were doubts about them, but they proved everybody wrong today. Blocking and hooking was the biggest theme of the game.

“Because when you do that to a team they get frustrated, wonder what they have to do to get fellas off their backs. So it was a whole team performance. It couldn’t have been a better performance and that is why they are All-Ireland club champions.”

Ballyhale captain Eamonn Walsh showed a little more emotion, reflecting on what has been an exceptional year, before switching his thoughts to next year – which begins with the task of winning a fifth successive Kilkenny title.

“We put in a fierce effort, even since winning Leinster. It’s been some year, and very difficult year, but great finish. Beating the All-Ireland champions in the final is the best way to do it.

“Five Kilkenny titles in a row is next on the cards, but you can’t look past any match in Kilkenny. We’ll be back pretty soon again in the club championship, and we’re looking forward to that.”

The most emotional show of the afternoon was reserved for Portumna manager Johnny Kelly; a first defeat since taking charge, yet no excuses, not even conceding that soft goal, and no less pride in his team. “We didn’t come up to lose. Things didn’t work out for us and you have to say Ballyhale were the better team on the day. I believe whoever wins is the better team so all credit to them. Hat’s off to Ballyhale. They’re an outstanding club.”

Things didn’t work out – Portumna missed goal chances; switched players around; maybe even succumbed to the pressure of seeking a historic third successive title. “Maybe it did subconsciously, I’m not sure,” said Kelly. “We didn’t talk about it, but maybe at times it seeps into guys, there’s very little you can do about that. I suppose we missed a couple of goal chances at the beginning of the game. I think one of them went off the goalie for a 65 and we didn’t even get that.

“They definitely were punishing us at the back, they were taking scores from out the field and they were making headway.

“We were failing to close down space in the middle of the field with the fact that very little ball was coming into our inside line. We tried to change it around a bit and it improved for a while, but it probably did leave us a bit to do at half-time. We were trying to poke for weaknesses in their defence. We started to get Joe Canning out to hold possession a bit better around the middle of the field. Having said that, we were robbing Peter to pay Paul. I suppose then in the second-half we came back again and then the goal took the wind out of our sails a bit. There’s no recriminations on our side.

“The character in our dressingroom has to be seen to be believed. They’ll take this on the chin as I will. We’ll come back and we’ll fight again.”