Ballinhassig coach John O'Sullivan: This success has been a long time coming

After being the nearly men in the PIHC grade for so long, Ballinhassig have finally burst through the door.

The Blues put in a dogged performance and also a quality display to see off Ballincollig in the Co-Op SuperStores PIHC final at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Sunday afternoon.

The eventual winners were second best early on, but once they got into their stride, they were always the likely winners. They won on a scoreline of 2-22 to 1-19.

They return to the senior ranks for the first time since 2013. They had a short stint up there having won this grade last in 2012. 

For Ballinhassig coach John O’Sullivan, who had two sons on the team, Darragh and Adam O’Sullivan, this triumph is most certainly a sweet one.

“This success has been a long time coming,” he said post-match.

“We have always been there or thereabouts, quarter-finals and semi-finals. We had never actually got to the final since coming back down to test ourselves and see how we would get on.

“I felt we delivered today with our squad depth helping us over the line. We had to go deep into our panel this year after suffering a lot of injuries. To a man, every fella that we called on this year delivered. 

"The lads have now created their own bit of history for Ballinhassig. There will be younger players now looking up to them, which is great.” 

O’Sullivan praised his players in what was an all-round display, but he did pick out captain Ger Collins, with the forward scoring 1-11 in the decider. 

“The Collins family are synonymous with this group,” O’Sullivan says.

“But Ger was excellent. He has been excellent for us all year. It does help when you have his brother Patrick inside in goal with his puckouts. It puts the opposition under serious pressure. All the players have been outstanding.

“I just can’t fault them. They have all put in a savage amount of work this year.” 

Ballinhassig have a Munster semi-final next month away to the Tipperary winners, Upperchurch-Drombane or Carrick Swan, but before all of that, they have a lot of celebrating to do. 

This one is special for the Carrigdhoun men after all the heartbreaking defeats over the last decade or so.

After failing to get out of their group in 2023 and being soundly beaten by Carrigaline at the quarter-final stage last year, it has been a brilliant turnaround.

“The fact that we are in Munster now, we will give it a good cut because the year when we won the Junior in 2002, we ended up going on to win the All-Ireland.

“In 2005 when we won the Premier Intermediate, we lost the All-Ireland final later in that season. We have a good record in the Munster series and All-Ireland series.

“The lads will be looking forward to it when it comes around. We will celebrate this first.” O’Sullivan ended.