Revenge not driving Ballygunner

It could have been ten years ago. Or 20. Mount Sion and Ballygunner in a winner-takes-all championship clash in Waterford senior hurling, just as the year turns to autumn.

Ballygunner, the form team in the southeast for the last couple of years, were too strong in last weekend’s county semi-final and eased to a ten-point win. Not that Philip Mahony was taking the result for granted.

“You look at it, Mount Sion were full of momentum coming into the game last weekend,” says the Ballygunner and Waterford half-back.

“They’d beaten De La Salle in the previous round after a weekend - I wasn’t at the game myself but from all reports they were full value for the win. That’s how you want to approach a county semi-final, with a good win under your belt.

“We knew we had to be at our best to get out of it with a win, and luckily we were well tuned in. Brian O’Sullivan got a goal for us which was vital, because we were under pressure to get scores in the first half.

“We managed to hold onto that lead then in the second half and we got there in the end. It’s a semi-final, semi-finals are there to be won, I suppose.”

Tomorrow Ballygunner face Passage, who sensationally beat them in the 2013 final with 2-4 in the last seven minutes.

“That won’t be a factor at this stage,” says Mahony. “Any time you’re playing in a county final the opposition shouldn’t matter, really. It’s the big day for hurling in the county so you should be able to take the game on its merits and go out and win it.

“Fair enough, the season after we lost that game we might have used that for motivation, but it’s well in the past at this point. We’re just focusing on the game itself rather than anything else.”

After a long season with Waterford, was the switch to club action a relief?

“Look, it was very disappointing after the Kilkenny game, the year we had and then to finish up like that.

“What helped us was that the U21s got on such a run then themselves that the club championship here in Waterford had to be postponed by a few weeks. The flip side of that though was that club players in the county were bursting to get back.

“Because of all that the county players had a longer turnaround this year than in previous years because of the U21s, so it might have helped us in terms of letting us get over that disappointment, but obviously that’s the same for every club, not just us.”

Those U21s brought home an All-Ireland, of course.

“It’s great,” says Mahony. “Waterford clearly haven’t been blessed with as many All-Ireland titles as some counties. It was fantastic to see the lads close it out and win, we had a couple from the club on the selection as well, which was a boost for us.”

Though many observers have Ballygunner and Thurles Sars as likely Munster club champions, Mahony isn’t entertaining that speculation: “Not at all, whether it’s Passage or any other club you wouldn’t be looking past tomorrow. All you have to do is see how competitive the Waterford championship has been in recent years - compare that to the nineties when Mount Sion and Ballygunner were so dominant.

If you look at the last round of league games earlier this year we could have had any of the other teams in the group for our final game, it was all up for grabs because the results were so even.

“That shows in the semi-final pairings in the last couple of years, the number of different teams involved there shows there isn’t one or two teams dominating the way it was a few years ago.

“We’re a tight bunch, a lot of us would have hurled U21 together going back the years, so the spirit is good.

It’s the same with Passage, a lot of them would have come up on the same underage teams so the spirit is good there, too. We’ll have it all to do tomorrow.”