'With TJ Reid standing over a free anything can happen'

TJ Reid of Ballyhale Shamrocks celebrates after scoring his side's second goal during the dramatic All-Ireland semi-final win over St Thomas. Picture: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

Colin Fennelly didn’t think the game was gone when TJ Reid lined up that late free for Ballyhale in their All-Ireland semi-final against St Thomas of Galway.

He thought it was gone before Reid lined up that chance, mind.

“Before that there was plenty of time to think at full-forward, I certainly thought the game was gone.

“We kept at it and in the last 10/15 minutes we slightly changed it up, we had to start attacking them and that’s what we did. We opened up more chances.

“With TJ standing over a free anything can happen. I certainly didn’t think the game was gone, that’s for sure, because he’s done it before and he did it again. It’s never over until it’s over.”

Ballyhale squeaked through to face Ballygunner in Saturday's All-Ireland club final. What did they learn from that close-run thing?

“It was more from our own perspective, we weren’t hungry enough to get onto those breaking balls, those 50-50 battles, and they were. That was the difference.

“The fact that we lost so much of those and still came out on top gives us confidence that if we get that right.

Colin Fennelly of Ballyhale Shamrocks

“It’s not something you can get from the training field, it’s all in your head at that stage - to beat your man or not. We’ve done it plenty of times before, we just dropped the ball on the day.”

They’re a long time on the road, with several players past 30 on the starting team. Fennelly has a different take, however on the idea that “as a team we’re coming to the end of our time - then I see Eoin Reid, he’s 38 and look at the job he’s doing for us.

“So I think I have another six years left in me, TJ might have four or five. That’s a hell of a long time for an old team to be gone.

“Our average age overall is about 25, if you took out TJ it’d probably be 20, but you’d never take TJ out.

“I think people focus more on the likes of TJ and Joey (Holden), the older lads, which makes the team sound older, but there’s an amazing team in the background, they’re learning all the time too.”

He’s been impressed by their final opponents: “I wouldn’t watch too many games in general but I have watched Ballygunner - I watched them against Kilmallock.

“Kilmallock are a good team but Ballygunner took them apart, which is obviously worrying for us. It was good for us to see what they can do on an open field, and Páirc Uí Chaoimh is probably similar to Croke Park.

“We have to have our wits about us, we’ve seen what Dessie Hutchinson brings to the table for them, his scoring would tell you that. And that’s a huge challenge for us but we’re looking forward to it. You’re always looking for something different and Ballygunner are certainly something different, they’ll bring a huge game.”

Fennelly has high praise for new manager James O’Connor: “Any county team would be lucky to have him. He just puts in so much work. It’s crazy.

“I can’t get over how fortunate we are to have a guy like him following after Henry (Shefflin). They are actually quite similar, the amount of research they do and small changes, tweaks that they make which makes all the difference to our play.

“I can see James going in with a county team somewhere and if I was involved in a team I would grab him.”

Fennelly’s time with Kilkenny gives him a good insight into what’s needed to make it at the county level - and when to take a step back, as he did.

“I was very nervous taking a year out because it’s something that does not happen too often.

“I spoke to Brian (Cody, Kilkenny manager) on it and he just said, ‘do whatever you need to do yourself,’ and I said I wasn’t sure.

“He just said ‘look, if you need to take time out, take time out,’ and that was it. I took time but I think after a month or two I knew I wasn’t going back.

“I didn’t think it was something I needed to announce but it was just after the county final and I said I had enough.

“I had my time, and an amazing time, with Kilkenny. It was probably a month after I knew I had enough but it was great to have that option of stepping away.

“There was very little said about it which was great as well, I liked having that opportunity for a month or two of just stepping away and not having that pressure, I suppose.”

And yet he’s “doing as much” with Ballyhale as he did with Kilkenny: “Maybe I just didn’t enjoy it anymore and I enjoy it that bit more with the club. I really don’t know, and that is the thing when I was finishing up, I couldn’t go into another year but yet I went back with Ballyhale and I am doing as much there as I would be doing with Kilkenny now.

“I am doing all the running, all the training, all the gym work so things have not changed from that perspective.

“Maybe the pressure there with Kilkenny but there was never that much pressure either - there are always lads there to lean on so it is a question I don’t have an answer for.”

And lads to lean on in Ballyhale. Fennelly sums the club up by going back to 2017.

“We lost a county semi-final to O’Loughlin Gaels, I thought we would never win the county final again at that stage.

“It was the younger generation then, the Eoin Codys, Adrian Mullens, all of them came through and all of a sudden we were back on top.

“It was just amazing to get back to there and to win four county finals.

“I was captain of the last one and I was out in the field and my uncle Dermot Fennelly was there and he said 'I did the exact same thing as you 20 years ago'.

“He was just laughing away after a county final and it was exactly 20 years to that month he did the exact same thing.”