Dessie Hutchinson looking forward to having another go at Sars after Munster final loss

Imitation is the greatest form of flattery, and Na Piarsaigh borrowed plenty from Sarsfields’ successful game plan to tackle Ballygunner at the weekend.

The Glanmire men will travel to meet the Waterford champions on Sunday week in a hotly anticipated rematch of their 2024 Munster final giantkilling act.

Yet Na Piarsaigh posed enough problems in an attritional tussle before Ballygunner pulled away in the final few minutes.

While the Gunners have blasted an average of 2-27 past their browbeaten opponents in the Déise championship, the adaptation to winter hurling and an imposing defence was evident in their 0-18 total.

The only issue being that Na Piarsaigh couldn’t make a dent in Ballygunner’s 0-15 average concession rate. They scored their 15 points from 32 shots. They should’ve had much more, especially early on. They clocked 10 misses inside the opening 20 minutes, in which time they scored just 0-3.

The fact that they got off a greater number of shots than their Suirside opponents’ 30 owed much to an evolution in their puck-out approach, akin to Sars’ shift last year.

When these Munster titans met in the 2023 semi-final, Na Piarsaigh went short with almost half of their puck-outs. They ended that contest with a mere 1-9 tally.

On Sunday, they went short with just five of their 27 restarts. The two times they did go short in the second half were turned over for Michael Mahony and Conor Tobin points.

Whereas getting the sliotar further down the field, Na Piarsaigh retained two in every three long puck-outs. From there, the issue was conversion rather than retention.

Like Sarsfields, Na Piarsaigh also had to match, if not exceed, Ballygunner’s intensity levels. Both sides packed the middle third. The livewire Peter Casey did much to limit Philip Mahony’s controlling influence at centre-back. David Dempsey had a big impact when switched to midfield.

But for a finish, it was the Gunners getting the bodies back behind the sliotar and creating space for the likes of Harry Ruddle and Peter Hogan to exploit down the stretch.

Even though Na Piarsaigh made five substitutions against Ballygunner’s two, the visitors got the greater bounce from Cormac Power and Tobin.

Paddy Leavey also showed his nous by drawing two charging frees from Piarsaigh defenders around the three-quarter mark. Hutchinson slotted the first, but Shane Dowling brought down the second from above the crossbar.

With the latter decision particularly dubious, home manager Shane O’Neill reckoned Ballygunner got frees “a bit easier in the last quarter than we were getting”.

Free-taking remained an issue for both sides throughout. Na Piarsaigh slotted eight of their 13 attempts, while Ballygunner converted just five out of 11. They hope to have regular free-taker Pauric Mahony recovered from his ankle injury to take part in that semi-final against Sars.

“It’s better than it was yesterday. It’ll be better tomorrow than it is today. Just things came a few days too soon for him. He’s making great progress,” said Jason Ryan, who took over as manager this year.

He paid credit to his side for reaching the bar for championship hurling after the long layoff since the Waterford final.

“We didn’t play in eight weeks, so it’s just getting yourself up to that intensity. 

The last game that we played in Waterford in the county final was nowhere near the intensity of this one.

“But these guys are serial winners, and they want to win more. Today was all about coming here and grinding out a performance.” 

On Sars’ challenge, Ryan added: “It’s a Munster semi-final, so it’s a huge game. We’ll be renewing rivalries and whatnot. Ballygunner and Sarsfields have played regularly over the last few years.

“Last year, I’m very much aware of, but prior to that, they had other encounters. It’ll be a massive game for both teams.”  

NEW DIMENSION

Dessie Hutchinson praised Ryan’s focus on boosting their energy, freshness, and fitness levels for adding “a new dimension” to an experienced group. All the while, he has maintained their trademark style of play, based on smart passing, support running, hard tackling, and work-rate.

The Déise captain feels his side will lack no motivation to meet Sars again.

“No, absolutely not. Look, it's going to be another massive challenge,” he said.

They're Munster champions and they deserve to be Munster champions, we acknowledge that, but obviously you want to get another go at them because we were hurt after last year.

“It's going to be a brilliant game again. We're back down in Walsh Park, we had a massive support there with us today, so it's nice to keep them at home and get even more people in there.

“I'm sure our management have been watching them in the background too and have their homework done.”