Dreams, decades, and half a second: Ballgunner's quest at last ends in victory

Ballygunner celebrate with the Tommy Moore Cup after the AIB GAA Hurling All-Ireland SHC Club final win over Kilkenny’s Ballyhale Shamrock at Croke Park. Picture: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

A few seconds that were decades in the making.

When Harry Ruddle galloped towards Hill 16 on Saturday evening, the match clock was deep in the red.

The Ballygunner substitute would have been forgiven if he’d tried to wear the cover off the ball, or meander down a blind alley, helped by all the Ballyhale Shamrocks cover.

He didn’t, though. He stayed consistent with the game plan.

“I saw open road in front of me and there was only one thing on my mind,” said Ruddle afterwards.

“I was just going to take it on because everybody was bunched around the goal, I wasn’t going to get a pass off, so I said I’d go for it.

“I thought the build-up to it, we were patient, composed, off the shoulder running. We knew a chance was going to come up and thankfully it arose like that, we got it. Running off the shoulder from deep, it came off.”

You know the rest. Ruddle connected sweetly with the ball and found the bottom corner of the net, even if he didn’t see it kiss the rigging (“I actually didn’t see it hit the net, I saw everybody, I just saw limbs. I just ran back out and trying to get out to position, then he blew it up.”)

Ballygunner led the game for as long as it took Dean Mason to puck the ball out after the goal, but that’s the only time it counts.

Ruddle’s goal helped them become the first Waterford club to win the All-Ireland senior title in what we are legally obliged to describe as the most dramatic of circumstances.

For Ballyhale this will leave a long and bitter aftertaste — not just because of the way it slipped through their fingers at the very end, but because they had remedied many of the issues which afflicted them in the All-Ireland semi-final, for instance.

That encounter with St Thomas’ of Galway is remembered mostly for its similarly gripping finale, but early on the Kilkenny side were sluggish and fitful and allowed St Thomas’ to make the running.

They were crisper on Saturday and disciplined in the first half, keeping Pauric Mahony to a single scorable free. They led by three at the break and Eoin Reid’s goal on 48 minutes looked like the platform for victory.

Yet Ballygunner had stayed in touch all through with their intricate passing patterns and tireless support running, even if the scoreboard didn’t always reflect how close they were to their opponents.

They left at least six points behind them in the first half and had almost found the net through Billy O’Keeffe, with Ballyhale grateful for Brian Butler’s courage in blocking him. They weren’t being overrun, but Ballyhale were more clinical, even if they couldn’t put real daylight between the teams.

Still, Ballygunner needed goals. Eight minutes after Reid’s goal Dessie Hutchinson — an electric presence all through for his side — found the net for Ballygunner.

The Kilkenny side looked to have steadied the ship with Evan Shefflin’s long-range point, but a two-point lead always offers the trailing side a puncher’s chance and Ballygunner took theirs.

In the Ballyhale corner the shock was still evident on the faces as the players trooped to the dressing room. Manager James O’Connor, a Waterford native, gave his views.

“What can I say? The dying seconds, to lose it... I thought we were the better team, the lads hurled fierce well, thought we had it won at a couple of stages but gave away a few frees that cost us. To go out with the last stroke of the ball, it’s a cruel way to go out, but we’ve been doing it to teams during the year.

“It’s a real hard one to take because I thought we performed really well. We led from start to finish, right to the 63rd minute, but they were always within touching distance. I’m fierce proud of the Shamrocks, they’ve showed great character and spirit and I’m just gutted they haven’t won the three in a row.”

As the players spilled out of the Ballygunner dressing room the contrast couldn’t have been more striking.

For one of them it was the great day in 20 years of great days: Shane O’Sullivan started hurling senior with Ballygunner two decades ago, but he never stopped dreaming of a visit to Croke Park like last Saturday’s.

“It’s the thing that kept me going for years, that some day we could come to Croke Park and win.

“It’s the one burning belief that I had, I’d have given up long ago if I didn’t believe that.

“We just persisted, they had momentum at different periods of the match, but we persisted, we kept going.

“And it just shows that if you keep going, something can break for you in a game, and that’s what happened.”

Keeping going. If you have an ear to hurling history in Waterford, those are words which echo down the decades: a tradition of keeping going.

The final whistle had hardly finished echoing around Croke Park when speculation began to kindle about the bounce Waterford might enjoy from Ballygunner’s success, if by speculation you mean pointed questions aimed at members of the winning side.

(Exhibit A: “There are unbelievable young players coming through,” said Shane O’Sullivan, “Hopefully they’ll go on and represent our county with the same distinction they did out there today.”)

Given how telescoped the league and championship seasons are it was reasonable to speculate on the bounce Waterford might enjoy, but it was a day for black and red, not white and blue, after years of agony.

Days, decades, and half a second. Ballygunner’s years of work zeroed into the time it took Harry Ruddle to make contact with the ball on Saturday. That was how long it took to open the door to the promised land for an entire club.