Cork Hurling: Christy O'Connor on lessons Sars can learn from devastating power-play of Ballygunner

All of a sudden, a miraculous comeback looked possible for Sarsfields just seconds into the second half when Daniel Hogan’s goal reduced the margin to five points with the breeze at their backs.

And then all of a sudden, it didn’t as Ballygunner had extinguished that flame of hope Sars had lit within seven minutes to push the margin back out to 11 points and end the Cork side’s reign as Munster champions.

Ballygunner have made a habit of destroying teams with power-plays in Walsh Park in Munster semi-finals in recent seasons – they buried Loughmore-Castleiney with 1-6 from eight shots in eight minutes last year. And Sunday was another Ballygunner clinic on how to kill a team off with a devastating power-play.

The game looked over early in the first half until Ballygunner took their foot off the gas and allowed Sars back into the match through an uncharacteristic period of casualness and sloppiness. Hogan’s second goal just after half-time was another score the Gunners would have been disappointed to have conceded. However, its concession was also the spark that triggered the Waterford side into getting serious again and in a mind to put the game to bed for good.

Once they did, Ballygunner went into ultra-defensive mode to lock the space down at the back and just see the match out. When Sars brought up goalkeeper Ben Graham to hit a 25-metre free in the 40th minute, there were 13 Ballygunner players between Graham and the goal.

Sars did convert all eight of their last eight shots at the target but Ballygunner were content to let Sars shoot from outside or to concede frees at that stage - because they weren’t going to give Sars another sniff of a green flag.

This was always going to be a tricky assignment for Sars when Ballygunner were hell-bent on atonement after last year’s Munster final, and particularly with the game on in Walsh Park.

The Gunners have now stitched a 47-game unbeaten run together at the venue, which are numbers unlike any club has ever come close to reaching in the history of the county and provincial championships.

The last time they were beaten in Walsh Park in Munster was in October 2014 when Cratloe from Clare turned them over. The last time Ballygunner lost a match at the county grounds was in June 2015 when De La Salle beat them by two points in a group game that didn’t really matter.

Everything matters now though. Since that game, Ballygunner have reached nine Munster finals in ten years, which is unlike anything any club has come close to achieving in the history of the provincial club hurling championships.

That’s the calibre of team Sars were facing on Sunday but they never gave themselves a chance to get off the ground because of how passive and loose they were in the first 20 minutes, which set the tone for the afternoon.

TOO EASY

The shot count in the first quarter was 15-6. Ballygunner were excellent in that period but Sars made it too easy for them to build the play through the middle. Sars also got hammered on their own puckout in that opening 20 minutes when only retaining 50% of their own restarts before finally getting some joy on their own puckout in the second quarter by trying to work the ball through the lines more.

Sars couldn’t get a handle on the Ballygunner puckout throughout the first 25 minutes until they finally sourced their best score of the afternoon, Hogan’s outstanding first goal, off a Ballygunner restart. They hadn’t sourced a score off a Ballygunner turnover either before Sars got their last two scores of the half off turnovers, one of which should have been a goal from Barry O’Flynn until the referee called it back for a free.

Apart from Colm McCarthy, Sars couldn’t get any traction up front in that opening 20-25 minutes. Jack O’Connor didn’t have his first possession until the 14th minute. O’Connor didn’t get his first chance to run at the Ballygunner defence until the 22nd minute but he was turned over. 

Sars were turned over in possession in an attacking position on four occasions by Ballygunner defenders in that first half.

Sars did cough up a couple of cheap goals from defensive errors but Ballygunner were still always far more clinical and efficient. Pauric Mahony ruthlessly punished any indiscretions from a flawless freetaking display. Dessie Hutchinson bagged 2-1 from his first three possessions. From his first two possessions in the second half, Patrick Fitzgerald scored a goal and engineered another clear-cut goalscoring opportunity.

Ballygunner’s final conversion rate (66 per cent) was only marginally better than Sars (65 per cent) but Sars bumped up those numbers in the fourth quarter when their conversion rate was 100 per cent compared to Ballygunner’s 50 per cent in the same period. Yet the game was long over by the outset of the fourth quarter.

At least it wasn’t over earlier. There were stages in the first half when this looked like being another disaster for Sars similar to the 17-point hiding from Ballygunner in 2023. Sars arrested those fears either side of half-time but that had been a mad chase to just try and get within sight of Ballygunner.

Sars did but once Ballygunner pressed their foot to the accelerator again, they left the Cork champions in their rear-view mirror to speed into another provincial final.