Ballyhale Shamrocks 6-23 Clough-Ballacolla 0-14
Ballyhale Shamrocks quickly turned their thoughts to All-Ireland glory after dishing out a record beating to Clough-Ballacolla in the Leinster final.
Next month marks the 50th anniversary of the club’s foundation and they will return to action in January looking to extend their lead in the All-Ireland roll of honour while chasing a first three-in-a-row in the history of the competition.
After a showing like yesterday’s, they could well be going for four on the spin if the pandemic hadn’t forced the cancellation of the provincial and All-Ireland series last year.
“We probably hadn’t been playing up to scratch over the last two or three games and we were still getting the wins,” said Ballyhale manager James O’Connor. “Once you are winning, you are moving onto the next game.
“But we knew as a team we had to come up here and put in a big performance and thankfully they did. As someone said earlier, if you poke the bear enough eventually it will wake, and thankfully that was today.”
Clough-Ballacolla ultimately paid the price buthe game was a decent contest for much of the first half and the Laois champions did more of the hurling in the opening 20 minutes after recovering well from Eoin Cody’s early goal.
Midfielder Aidan Corby was particularly impressive, slotting four first half points from distance but while Ballacolla found a response to Colin Fennelly’s 21st minute goal with two immediate points, when the Ballyhale captain struck for another three minutes later, they were floored.
The holders kicked on to lead 3-11 to 0-10 at half-time and the second half was a procession, with Adrian Mullen, Brian Cody and sub Eoin Reid adding further goals for a victory that eclipsed the previous biggest margin in a Leinster final, which was the 17-point defeat that Ballyhale suffered at the hands of Birr in 1991.
O’Connor didn’t shy away from just how much of an incentive adding another All-Ireland in the club’s golden jubilee year would be.
“It’s a massive deal, being honest with you. It’s never said to me, but I know it is in the background. It’s my job to get a performance out of the team every single day, it’s my job to keep them in tip-top shape week on week.
“They’re a very proud club, they’re a club that sets targets from the start of the year to the end. We wanted to win this game to finish out 2021 as winners.
“Now next month we move into 2022, that’s another year. And what a great way to start a year if you could start it by winning an All-Ireland semi-final.”
Clough-Ballacolla manager Declan Laffan rued the run-in to half-time, with his side outscored 2-7 to 0-4 in the second quarter.
He said: “They punished us big time just before the break - we had no way of coming back from that. I don’t think we deserved though to lose the way we lost. We’re not that poor a team. Things just didn’t go at all for us after that.
“It was brilliant for us to get here to a Leinster final but we didn’t perform on the day.
“We had set up playing with a third midfielder to limit the possession going inside, turn it into a battle zone. But we didn’t look like having a goal inside.
“Once they hit us with the goals, we had to open up and change our system. They’re ruthless. They tore us to shreds. You go through their forwards and one is scarier than the other. They’re exceptional.”
BALLYHALE SHAMROCKS: Dean Mason; Darren Mullen, Joey Holden, Kevin Mullen; Evan Shefflin, Richie Reid, Darragh Corcoran (0-1); Ronan Corcoran (0-4), Paddy Mullen (0-1); Eoin Cody (1-6, 0-3f), Brian Cody (1-1), Adrian Mullen (1-0); Colin Fennelly (2-1), TJ Reid (0-6f), Eoin Kenneally (0-1).
Subs: Conor Phelan for Shefflin (42), Eoin Reid (1-1) for TJ Reid (47), Conor Walsh for Paddy Mullen (47), Brian Butler for Kevin Mullen (52), Liam Barron (0-1) for Kenneally (54).
CLOUGH-BALLACOLLA: Cathal Dunne; Eoin Doyle, Diarmaid Conway, Darren Maher; Brian Corby (0-1), Michael McEvoy, Lee Cleere (0-1); Willie Hyland, Aidan Corby (0-4); Robbie Phelan, Jordan Walshe (0-1), Mark Hennessy; Stephen Bergin, Willie Dunphy (0-3), Stephen Maher (0-3f).
Subs: Ronan Broderick for Darren Maher (36), Cillian Dunne (0-1) for Hyland (42), John Dwyer for Bergin (45), Tom Delaney for McEvoy (47), Sean Corby for Hennessy (53).
REFEREE: Richie Fitzsimons (Offaly).
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