Pauric Mahony stars as Ballygunner move within one win of making more Munster club history
The records keep tumbling for Darragh O'Sullivan's side as they roared into another Munster final at the expense of Loughmore-Castleiney.
Ballygunner outclassed Loughmore-Castleiney at Walsh Park this afternoon to march into a fourth consecutive Munster Hurling Final.
The Waterford champions made it 11 provincial wins on the bounce and they’re now just one victory away from a first ever Munster four-in-a-row.
Ballygunner had already made history last year with the first ever Munster three-in-a-row, which put them joint top of the roll of honour alongside Blackrock on five titles.
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These are heady times for a side that seem intent on backing up their 2022 All-Ireland triumph. Ballyguner haven’t lost in Munster since Borris Ileigh turned them over in the 2019 final.
That run never looked like coming to an end yesterday against a Loughmore-Castleiney side who are remarkable in a different way.
This season they completed a second Tipperary senior double in four years and a third in their history. But now Loughmore-Castleiney have just a week to pick themselves up for an away Munster senior football semi-final against Clare champions Éire Og Ennis.
They were hampered here by Tipperary legend Noel McGrath’s struggling with sickness going into the game.
“He was actually quite sick,” said Loughmore-Castleiney manager Eamonn Kelly, the former Offaly, Laois and Kerry boss.
“We didn’t think he was going to be able to tog out - some bug. Brian (McGrath) had it yesterday (Saturday). Listen, they’re not excuses.
“Noel was adamant he wanted to hurl and I’d take half a Noel McGrath any day, to be honest. It’s just something that happens and you just have to live with it. They’re the ups and downs of sports.”
Kelly continued: “They’re lucky enough that they can come back training Wednesday night and go play a game next weekend.
“It would be bad to finish a year on a downer like that. They have an opportunity to get it out of their system (against Éire Og).”
Speaking about Ballygunner’s display, Kelly said: “Listen, they can go all the way. They’re capable of going all the way but you just don’t know.
“On a given day, anything can happen. Weather can play a huge part in it. They’re a cracking hurling side. If they get to play on good pitches, it’ll take a serious hurling side to turn them over.”
Ballygunner were always in control of this one, but on 27 minutes they were just a point ahead at 0-9 to 0-8.
However, in the last six minutes of the half Darragh O’Sullivan’s side outscored the Tipp champions by 1-6 to 0-0. A flow of points preceded things going from bad to worse for Loughmore-Castleiney.
Right on the stroke of half-time, Ballygunner cut their opponents open off another puck out set move from Stephen O’Keeffe.
Dessie Hutchinson won the ball and fed a totally unmarked Patrick Fitzgerald. He coolly zipped a pass across goal for Kevin Mahony to fire to the net.
That left the half-time score 1-15 to 0-8 for a dominant Ballygunner, who were admittedly wind assisted with goalie O’Keeffe landing one monster from 100 plus metres out.
Pauric Mahony was the man Loughmore-Castleiney couldn’t tag as the former county star fired over five points from play in the first half, roving out from the corner and continually finding pockets of space.
Further out the field midfield man, Conor Sheahan ran the show, while also tracking Noel McGrath, as Ballygunner were sharpest to break after break across the game.
A 21st minute flare-up resulted in yellow cards for Ed Meagher, who was down for a period receiving treatment and Peter Hogan, who appeared to lash back at him.
Hogan stayed on and contributed four points from play in an all action display, before departing on 53 minutes with a minor ankle issue.
Ballygunner shot 1-21 of their 1-26 from play and had nine different scorers as they hit their opponents from all angles with Dessie Hutchinson’s movement off puck outs and O’Keeffe’s accuracy a big factor.
Loughmore-Castleiney could only manage 1-8 from play and were always a step behind against a slicker outfit, but then Ballygunner are slicker than pretty much everyone.
Ballygunner boss Darragh O’Sullivan said: “I’m looking forward to looking at it back (the 1-6 before half-time).
“That’s what these guys have the potential to do, and that’s the way it was. But we needed that, because that just sucked the energy out of them. Realistically, that’s where the game was won.
“Kevin’s goal really gave us a big enough space at half-time. We’d have to concede three goals for them to get back into it.
“Now, they got in a few times, and they had plenty of shots on goal, which is something we’d have to look at and some were frees brought in 10 or 15 yards for mouthing which is not something we do.
“That’s certainly an improvement area we can go after.”
BALLYGUNNER: S O’Keeffe (0-1), I Kenny, B Coughlan, T Foley, H Ruddle, Philip Mahony, R Power, C Sheahan (0-1), P Leavey, D Hutchinson (0-4, 1 65), Pauric Mahony (0-9, 4fs), P Hogan (0-4), P Fitzgerald (0-1), K Mahony (1-3), M Mahony (0-1).
SUBS: C Power (0-2) for Fitzgerald 48mins, S O’Sullivan for Hogan 53mins, C Tobin for M Mahony 56mins, J Foley for T Foley 58mins, A O’Neill for Pauric Mahony 58mins.
LOUGHMORE CASTLEINEY: A McGrath, L Egan, W Eviston, E O’Connell, J Ryan (0-1), B McGrath, E Meagher (0-1), N McGrath, C Connolly (0-2), T Maher, T McGrath, E Connolly, J McGrath (0-9, 7fs, 1 65), C McGrath (0-1), L McGrath.
SUBS: C McCormack (1-0) for T Maher ht, J Meagher (0-1) for O’Connell ht, P McCahey for E Connolly 44mins, L Treacy (0-1) for C McGrath 46mins, D McCahey for Ryan 53mins.
REFEREE: C O’Regan (Cork).
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