Ballygunner v Ballyhale: No room for sentiment in an All-Ireland final

ON the Wednesday night before the 1996 Leinster hurling final, Liam Griffin, the Wexford manager was flicking through the TV channels when he came across a programme featuring Alain Mimoun.

The great French athlete was in his 80s by then but the story he told encapsulated much of the struggle of his career.

Mimoun was a contemporary of the brilliant Czech runner Emil Zatopek, who consistently beat the Frenchman. At the 1948 Olympics and twice at the 1952 games, Mimoun had come second to Zatopek. The results had been the same at two World Championships. Zatopek had won three gold medals at the 1952 Games, the last of which came in the marathon.

By the time of the Melbourne Games in 1956, Mimoun decided that the marathon would be where he would conduct his last great battle with Zatopek, even though he had never attempted a marathon before. On the day, Mimoun was inspired; at the finish line, he was over a minute ahead of his nearest pursuer.

“I thought, all of a sudden, this story was a divine inspiration,” recalled Griffin in Denis Walsh’s book ‘ Hurling: The Revolution Years’. “We can do this you know, I said to myself. We are the Mimouns of hurling. Offaly have beaten us every time but this is the chance to get the ghosts off our backs and be somebody. And if we don’t we’ll forever be in the shadows. So, I told the players the story of Mimoun.”

Wexford finally overcame Offaly that Sunday to win a first Leinster title in 28 years. Today, Ballygunner will aim to win a first All-Ireland club title, but they have to try and take down their - and everybody else’s - Zatopek, Ballyhale Shamrocks.

The sides have only met once before in the club championship – the 2019 All-Ireland semi-final – but Ballyhale have been consistently running over teams for the last five years; they are now unbeaten in knockout championship since October 2017.

Ballygunner have been knocking on this door for years – decades – now, but it’s almost fitting that if they are to finally break it down that Ballyhale are standing in their way.

The provincial championships are always loaded with landmines, but a potential and much anticipated final match-up between Ballyhale and Ballygunner had been loosely forming since the sides last met in 2019.

They were on course to meet again in the 2020 All-Ireland final until Ballygunner were narrowly beaten in the Munster final by Borris-Ileigh. At the end of that season, Ballygunner and Ballyhale won their county finals by margins of 21 and 17 points. They were primed for another assault on the club championship, and another meeting, but the provincial and All-Ireland series was never played.

The outcome of the club championship is never easy to predict from the outset, but Ballyhale have such a rich pedigree in this competition, and Ballygunner have such quality and such a burning ambition to win the Tommy Moore Cup that the final pairing which many predicted back in November is now finally happening.

It very nearly didn’t. Ballyhale got out of jail twice, against St Rynagh’s and St Thomas’, while Ballygunner were lucky to escape against Loughmore-Castleiney, when the Tipp champions had Noel and John McGrath controversially sent off.

Ballygunner shipped a lot of stick in the aftermath of that win but they just shrugged their shoulders. Ballygunner have had a long history of disappointment in the provincial club championship, having lost nine Munster finals. Some of the current squad have lost four of those deciders.

In the lead up to the provincial final in January against Kilmallock, Pauric Mahony hinted at how those hard lessons have framed this squad’s determination to finally get the job done. “There’s a saying,’” said Mahony, “’Nice boys win nothing.’”

Ballygunner are on the cusp, but that quest to finally create history after such previous heartbreak, has never been easy. Rathnure from Wexford lost five All-Ireland finals, while Antrim’s Dunloy lost four deciders.

The club championships are littered with stories of a heartbreaking pursuit and never-ending search that never did yield the Holy Grail. Roscommon’s Clann na nGael are the standout example, having lost four successive All-Ireland football finals between 1987-’90, and five finals in total.

Toomevara were one of the greatest club sides never to win an All-Ireland hurling title, losing a final and two semi-finals. Similar to Ballygunner, they also had a grip on their own county championship, winning 11 Tipp titles in 17 years.

Yet Toome only won three Munster titles from that haul, which was much less than what they expected. After losing an epic All-Ireland semi-final to Ballyhale in 2007, Toome never got close again, winning their last county title in 2008.

De la Salle never enjoyed that same level of dominance in Waterford, but they are another club left with stinging regrets. Hammered in the 2009 All-Ireland final by Portumna, De la Salle lost the 2011 All-Ireland semi-final to Clarinbridge with the last puck of extra time in what was arguably the greatest club match ever played.

After De la Salle narrowly lost the 2012 Munster final to Thurles Sarsfields (another club who dominated in Tipperary but who never enjoyed the success they expected on the bigger stage), the Waterford city side have been under the thumb of Ballygunner ever since.