Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
IT’S GUNNER BE OUR TURN SOON!
Mahony optimistic the pain game is coming to a close ..starting with a win today
Ballygunner (Waterford) v Na Piarsaigh (Limerick)
Semple Stadium, today, 2.00pm
NOBODY needs to tell Pauric Mahony what’s on the line for he and Ballygunner.
Big final defeats are painfully familiar at this stage for a Waterford star still licking his wounds after September’s AllIreland setback.
Exactly 11 weeks on, he is heading into an AIB Munster club final with a side that has lost more provincial deciders than anyone else, seven.
Mahony missed ‘Gunner’s 2015 final defeat to Na Piarsaigh, today’s opponents, after a horrific broken leg injury but was there in 2009 when they lost to Newtownshandrum.
Throw in his Munster and National League final heartache with Waterford in 2016 and you can understand why he’s so driven to succeed now.
The All-Ireland defeat stung more than most and Mahony, who scored 11 points on the day against Galway, is still getting over it. The centre-forward said: “Looking back, I wouldn’t change a whole lot of our buildup, I genuinely don’t know what I would change if we were to get another chance to go back. I thought our buildup was very good, it was low-key.
“We were really focused on that 70-minute performance. A lot of us just didn’t perform to our standards.
“Galway also had those couple of games against Kilkenny in AllIreland finals where it didn’t go their way. When the game was in the melting pot with 15 minutes to go, they stood up and got the crucial scores.
“At the end of the day, with 15 minutes to go you probably didn’t know which way the game was going to go. Maybe that bit of experience just stood to them.”
Club success today would come as a welcome fillip to Mahony, sibling Philip, All-Star goalkeeper Stephen O’Keeffe and Barry Coughlan who all played for Waterford in September.
They’ve dug deep to reach this stage with a two-point win over star studded Thurles Sarsfields followed by a one-point victory over Sixmilebridge.
Their greatest challenge is probably still to come with Na Piarsaigh picking up All-Ireland honours as recently as 2016.
The Limerick outfit also have an unbeaten record in Munster having contested 10 games in total since 2011, winning nine and drawing one.
Ballygunner’s only Munster title came in 2001 when the team was captained by Mahony’s uncle, Billy O’Sullivan.
Mahony, 25, said: “My earliest club memory was the 2001 Munster club final when Billy was captain. He hurled for three or four more years at senior level. Would you believe he is still playing junior for the club.
“He is not far off 50 at this stage. I was nine in 2001. They likes of Paul Flynn, Fergal Hartley, Billy, my uncle Rory, they were the people I would have looked up to when I was younger. My Dad was playing in the 2001 final as well.
“I saw at first hand what it took for them to do it in 2001.
“They would have made huge sacrifices. If you ask any of them, they will say they trained harder in 2001 than any other year.
“They earned their rewards. Hopefully we can do it now too.”
We were very focused on that All-Ireland performance but a lot of us just didn’t perform as well as we can