BALLYHALE LET LOOSE
Cats rout Cup rivals as Henry bags title
THE hurling winter will carry a black and amber tinge. In chalking up a ninth AIB Leinster club senior title and extending their lead at the top of the provincial roll of honour, Ballyhale Shamrocks made it a clean sweep for Kilkenny teams this weekend.
Between Dunnamaggin taking the junior title with a win over Na Fianna (Meath), Graigue-Ballycallan earning the intermediate spoils with 40-year-old Eddie Brennan leading the charge against Portlaoise, and then Henry Shefflin’s Ballyhale Shamrocks taking Ballyboden St Enda’s apart, there was plenty to offset the county’s shortened summer.
For someone dipping his toes into management for the first time, Shefflin has made an immediate impact, the Kilkenny champions seeming to grow in stature since they annexed the county title. After the semi-final shooting spree against Naomh Éanna, this amounted to another ruthless dispatching of a highly-regarded opponent, Ballyboden St Enda’s completely over-run in the second half at Netwatch Cullen Park as the heavens opened and the floodlights came on.
Even in the most testing of conditions, some familiar faces led the way for Ballyhale.
Michael Fennelly was a huge presence at centre-back and his direct opponent Conor Dooley was replaced just before the break. Darren Mullen was another to shine in a defence that was compact and aggressive under the dropping ball.
And TJ Reid did what TJ Reid does best, producing moments of sheer class amidst the downpour. Adjusting his radar after a first half when he accounted for half of his side’s 10 wides, he pulled the strings in the second half, wowing the crowd with one reverse handpass over his head to a teammate as he fell to his knees.
The move ended in a foul on the ever-threatening Colin Fennelly as Ballyboden St Enda’s were battered in that second period, Ballyhale hitting 1-8 without reply from the 42nd to 56th minutes.
Added to the four points without reply just before half-time just when Ballyboden had pegged the gap back to being all square at 0-8 to 1-5, this amounted to a rout. ‘Yeah look, I won’t look for excuses,’ said manager Joe Fortune. ‘They were by far the better team on the day. Especially in the second half. They came out on top.
‘We’ve had a serious journey this year. There’s a lot of people who wrote that team off over the last couple of years. But look, they’ve given everything. Everything I’ve asked them to do. Just on the day itself, Ballyhale were that bit better.
‘Winning a county title is hard enough to do and just coming back in and getting a good run in Leinster — those lads will be devastated now. It’s been a very good year for Ballyboden, it’s just a pity today that we didn’t go at it in the second half especially.’
Only for 10 first-half wides, the Kilkenny champions could have been out of sight by the break. Uncharacteristically, Reid was responsible for five of those via a missed free, a 65 and three coming from play, sliding right on the crossfield breeze.
The tale of the first half could be told in Ballyboden’s economy of shooting, their sole wide coming from Aidan Mellett in the 25th minute. The only problem with that is that the shooting stats indicated the wealth of possession that Ballyhale enjoyed.
An early goal from Adrian Mullen helped them on their way, running on to a sweetly weighted Eoin Cody handpass to finish low past Gary Maguire, the Ballyboden goalkeeper playing almost as a sweeper in behind at times in the way in which he came so smartly off his line.
After being bossed in the general exchanges, Ballyboden’s main joy came when Colm Basquel began to find pockets of space. Twice he left former All-Star Joey Holden trailing in his wake, darting around him in the 14th minute to point before adding another less than a minute later, again firing off his left.
Combined with a Paul Ryan free, the southside Dublin outfit were back to within a score midway through the half, 1-4 to 0-4, before finding their groove to level via another brace of Ryan frees and a Shane Durkin point, Ballyhale goalkeeper Dean Mason even needed to block a shot from Stephen O’Connor away to safety.
Two Reid frees and two points from the impressive Eoin Reid gave Ballyhale a four-point cushion at the break and they simply took over on the restart, defying the conditions, Adrian Mullen capping a fine performance with a second goal.
Munster champions Ballygunner have been well-warned ahead of a mouth-watering All-Ireland semi-final in two months’ time.