Ballygunner's Barry Coughlan: We're not as great as people make us out to be
Former Waterford full back Barry Coughlan says that Ballygunner have 'failed' over the past two years.
Barry Coughlan says Ballygunner have failed plenty over recent years and aren’t as good as they are made out to be.
The 34 year old former Waterford defender was rock solid at the weekend as the 11-in-a-row county champions, moved within one victory of becoming the first side to win a Munster four-in-a-row.
Ballygunner - already joint top of the Munster roll of honour alongside Cork's Blackrock with five titles - were always in control as they dismissed Tipp senior hurling and football champions, Loughmore-Castleiney at Walsh Park.
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The Waterford City side went all the way to All-Ireland glory in 2022 with Harry Ruddle’s dramatic last gasp goal defeating Ballyhale Shamrocks.
But they’ve twice come up short at national leaving, being horsed out of it by St. Thomas in last year’s semi-final, and losing out to Ballyhale in the last four the year before.
After dismissing Limerick’s Doon and Loughmore-Castleiney, Ballygunner are now just three wins away from backing up that single All-Ireland title victory.
And with Ballyhale Shamrocks and St. Thomas both out, they've already been installed as favourites.
First up they’ll have to defeat Cork’s Sarsfields, who dismissed Clare’s Feakle in the Munster semi-final at the weekend.
The winner of that one will face the Ulster champions in the All-Ireland semi-final in mid December - either Portaferry or Slaughtneil.
“We’ve been trying to win the All-Ireland every year but we haven’t,” said a straight-talking Coughlan, who retired from inter-county hurling back in 2018 at just 28 years of age.
“We are failing still every year. We won one (All-Ireland) a couple of years ago and it was a last-minute goal and we’re trying to get back there.
“We’ve won a few Munsters and that but we aren’t as great as people make us out to be in a sense because we have failed over the last couple of years.
“Our goal remains the same, to try and push on - I suppose the same as every other club team.”
So what is it about Ballygunner that has hurling fans rating them so highly.
It’s probably how well coached they are, their work rate and the ability to play to gameplan, allied to the individual flair of the likes of Dessie Hutchinson, Pauric Mahony, Peter Hogan, Kevin Mahony and Patrick Fitzgerald.
One All-Ireland seems scant reward for some of the performance they’ve produced which have seen them utterly dominate in Waterford and win an astonishing 11 games on the bounce in Munster.
The ease with which they dismissed a seasoned outfit like Loughmore-Castleiney was impressive, as they hit an unanswered 1-6 in the lead-up to half-time just as the Tipp men had closed the gap to one point.
That was pretty much game over with Kevin Mahony’s well taken goal off a pre-planned puck-out move, handing Ballygunner a 10 point half-time lead.
“Loughmore are obviously a brilliant team, an unbelievable team so we are chuffedm” said Coughlan. “We knew it was going to be a really tough battle.
“We were probably lucky to get up as much as we were in the first half and it gave us that bit of a buffer in the second half. They never die.
“Even to the end, we were on edge because a team like that can come back at any minute so we had to keep in the fight.
“It’s a privilege to be playing this late into the year. Like, playing in the cold weather and bit of muck, it’s real Munster club hurling in a way.
“I’d say it’s one of the toughest championships in Ireland across both codes. As the ad goes, it’s the toughest.
“I also watched the Slaughtneil game and it was a brilliant game and it’s similar up there. It’s really competitive. Helter-skelter.”
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