'Our club is probably an emotional club' - Mount Sion vow to fight in daunting Gunners showdown

The city rivals face off in the Waterford SHC decider on Sunday.

Sun, 07 Sep, 2025 - 10:15

John Fogarty

It wasn’t so long ago that senior county final appearances rained like confetti on Mount Sion. And in them, Ballygunner were feeling the edge of their sword. Between 2000 and 2006, they won five titles and silenced The ‘Gunners each time.

Then everything changed. Up to this weekend, Mount Sion had featured in just two deciders since 2006 and on both occasions they were humbled by their rivals across Waterford city. They may still have the bragging rights in the all-time roll of honour but in the last 19 years Ballygunner have more than halved the gap, from 25 to 12.

So Sunday being something of a rarity for Mount Sion, it’s important for the club to embrace it, yet the one-week turnaround from their dramatic semi-final win over Roanmore has left them feeling shortchanged.

“It's just too condensed,” says manager Jamie O’Meara of the championship timeframe. “There's no time. Even for myself, I see around the club, there's a bit of a panic. We're trying to put up a few flags throughout the week. And I know that in Mount Sion School, it would have been lovely to have an extra week for the kids themselves just to kind of get the feel for the atmosphere or even build it up a bit more around town and stuff.

“I think everybody understood that at the time of the pandemic, it was more about ‘let's just try and get a few games played and have some sort of championship played’. But, to be honest with you, I think they need to do better with what's happening at the minute. You can see the impact of players with injuries and stuff like that. It's just too condensed.”

The flipside of the sharp turnaround to the final is it gives Mount Sion little time to consider the behemoth they are facing. Ballygunner are looking to make it a 13th consecutive title and seek a 67th consecutive championship win. Theirs is a story of unprecedented dominance, by some way eclipsing Mount Sion’s nine-in-a-row feats between the 1950s and 60s.

Basically, there is less chance of Mount Sion playing the occasion rather than the game but in the club O’Meara has plenty of champions to call on. Jim Greene often imparts words of wisdom, and then are local heroes in Ken McGrath and Tony Browne too, although the manager doesn’t have fears that this staging will get to them.

“I think a lot of young lads now, they're very grounded,” he insists. “And I think they know themselves that if you start getting caught up in all that kind of stuff, it does take away from your performance.

“With this group in particular, I just see they enjoy coming training every week. Most nights we're blowing the whistle and you can nearly see the look on their faces, ‘Oh, we'd love another 10 minutes.’ We just want to keep that going.

“We’re not going to change anything even for the week that’s in it. You can concede two goals in the first minute or you could score them. Either way, it's how you react.”

It's been quite the helter-skelter ride for Mount Sion in reaching this final. Flawless in the group stages, they required extra-time to beat Clonea in the quarter-final and then some incredible late aerial interventions by Aussie Gleeson to see off Roanmore last weekend.

There might be a concern they could be mentally as much as physically zapped by those two games but this is Mount Sion, says O’Meara: they thrive on feelings. “Look, our club is probably an emotional club. Back in 2006, we won our 35th title in 70 years. So that record of one every two years, I and a lot of people in the club grew up with it. Whether it was senior or underage, probably similar to what Ballygunner have at the minute. And I suppose when you look at them, we're probably so long now without successes. At senior level anyway in the last 19 years – I think it's 15 or 16 for a minor title.

“You can feel it with the crowd. But the most important thing with our crowd, I always say, is they're very supportive as well. So if things don't go our way Sunday, the first people to pick you up will be our supporters and our club people, which is great as well.

“Look, there's obviously a want in our club to win a championship, but for the lads they just have to focus on a game of hurling. There's a bite in them and they just kind of nearly just refuse to be beaten. So far, they've shown a lot of grit, but we're going to have to show a hell of a lot more of it on Sunday.”