Abbeyside’s Enright clan eye day of deliverance in Waterford SHC final

By Conor Kane

Fraher Field will tomorrow witness the coming together in Waterford’s senior hurling showdown of two clubs whose fortunes could hardly be more different over the years: Ballygunner aiming for their fifth title in a row and 17th in all, Abbeyside yet to experience that sweet taste of county final success.

The odds — with the champions raging hot favourites at 1/8 and ‘the village’ rated 11/2 — reflect the clubs’ respective records in the competition as well as recent results between them.

But no team ever won a match in the betting office and Abbeyside will make the short trip across Dungarvan with decent results under their belts in recent weeks.

There was a comfortable 5-17 to 0-9 win over An Rinn and a 2-22 to 0-10 trouncing of Tallow. And they have shown mettle too, in the edgy 0-14 to 0-13 semi-final passage beyond last year’s runners-up De La Salle.

Abbeyside supporters may take consolation too in their team’s closing of the gap to the Gunners, who breezed through last year’s group match between the teams by 1-28 to 0-12. This year the score was 1-12 to 0-7. Will that trend continue? That’s the six million buck question.

It’s just Abbeyside’s fifth senior final and some of the parish’s more venerable residents can remember all four of their previous, unsuccessful, appearances.

Like the Enright family.

When Garda Tom Enright from Ballyduff in Kerry was stationed in Toomevara in north Tipp and met Mary Kelly, nobody could have predicted the implications their marriage would have for a hurling club two counties away on the southeast coast.

But the newlyweds ended up in Abbeyside, via Ballyragget, and the six sons they produced all took to the field with distinction.

The eldest, Noel, won a Harty Cup in 1949 with Dungarvan CBS; Johnny won a Dean Ryan Cup medal with the same school in 1951 and both shone for the club; Dom was centre-back on the 1957 team that lost the senior final to Mount Sion and was a sub on the Waterford team that got to the All-Ireland final; Fr Michael played minor hurling but had to quit the sport when he joined the seminary.

“He was a very promising hurler,” remembers Pat Enright at his Park Lane home in Abbeyside.

The two youngest, Liam ‘Doc’ and Pat, featured on the teams that reached the county finals of 1964 and 1969, to be denied by Mount Sion on both occasions.

“Two are dead, Johnny and Dom. Fr Michael is retired now in Tramore. Liam is only living across the road from me here in Abbeyside and Noel is in Dublin.”

Pat, Liam, and Fr Michael will all be in the field tomorrow as their successors try to achieve what was just beyond their grasp. By strange coincidence, it will be the 10th anniversary of Dom’s death and the fourth birthday of Pat’s grandson Iarlaith.

Quite a day.

Moving forward a generation, Pat’s son Mickey played in the 2008 final when De La Salle came through by two points, while Liam’s son Stephen will be between the posts tomorrow.

“When we played in 1964, I was in goal, I was only 18, I was only a young lad,” Pat says. “It was over in the field and the Mount Sion full-forward line was Seamus Power, Philly Grimes, and Frankie Walsh, coming from a great Waterford team. They won 3-6 to 1-6.

“Then in 1969 we played them down in Waterford and they ran out easy winners but we stayed with them for a long time. I was centre-forward. That’s as far as we got.”

Now they’re back in the big time for the first time in a decade, under the management of former Waterford star Peter Queally who was, incidentally, in charge of Passage when they were the last team to beat Ballygunner in a senior final back in 2013.

“These lads are great,” Pat Enright says of the current batch. “They’re after putting in a great shift and I hope they do themselves proud. They’ve shown great character and discipline under Peter, which might have been lacking in years gone by.”

With Pauric Mahony among the many Ballygunner stars, the advice from Pat is “no soft frees” and while Abbeyside are severe underdogs, who knows? It could be a day when new stars are born, when new reputations are formed, when a new name enters the most coveted roll of honour in Waterford.

“We have nothing to lose. Go out and enjoy the day.”