BELIEF NEVER WAYNED SAYS ‘GUNNER STAR
IT may have taken seven knocks before the door finally opened, but Wayne Hutchinson never doubted that it would.
In recent years, Ballygunner have measured themselves increasingly by what they do in Munster, such was their dominance in Waterford, where they won a fifth successive county title last autumn.
Hutchinson wasn’t involved in 2015 having spent the year playing with St Jude’s in Dublin, where he lost a county final to Cuala, but he was part of their other seven county title wins since they last won Munster in 2001, before his senior career got underway.
“I couldn’t commit to the club at home and the way they are at home is if you want to be on the team you have to be 100 per cent down the line,” he explains. “That year I just wasn’t able to give that commitment so what do I do, come to Dublin and not play hurling? I love the game, I was going to play either way.”
Na Piarsaigh were Ballygunner’s serial tormentors in recent years, beating them in two Munster finals, but when they finally turned the tables on the slick Limerick outfit in November’s provincial decider, Hutchinson (right) was the man with the ball in his hand when the final whistle sounded.
“It’s sitting at home on the mantelpiece in my mother’s house and it will be there for ever more,” he said.
“It was a great moment.”
His belief that Ballygunner could conquer the province never wavered despite continually being alsorans in the competition.
“To be honest I absolutely did [believe]. I knew the potential was in the team, no question.
“If I didn’t think that I wouldn’t be committing to it. It was a massive day because the last time we won a Munster was back in 2001 so a lot of the talk around the club is always about that team. Thankfully we are after creating our own bit of history.”
And they’re not finished yet. Seventeen years ago, their predecessors lost the club’s only previous All-ireland semi-final to Clarinbridge. Hutchinson and Co have the opportunity to go one better against Ballyhale Shamrocks in Thurles on Saturday.