This summer has been coming in Abbeyside, even if it has taken its own sweet time to get here. In almost 130 years of the Waterford hurling championship, 23 different clubs have taken home a county title. Abbeyside aren’t one of them.
In the past century, 19 Waterford clubs have been beaten in county finals. Of those, 14 have gathered in at least one title to sit on the wall alongside their runner-up photos. Of the remaining five, four have had just that one solitary final defeat to get over. Abbeyside’s torture has been far more prolonged and pronounced than that – they have been to six deciders and lost them all. By an average of just under eight points per final, since you ask.
So it hasn’t been pretty. And it might not be pretty this Sunday in Fraher Field either. The great black and red ogres of Ballygunner are coming clomping into town in search of an 11th county title in a row and it will stand as one of the shocks of the hurling year at any grade if Abbeyside trip them up.
“There’s no point feeling sorry for yourself,” says Abbeyside club chairman Neil Moore. “Everybody knows what Ballygunner are capable of and it’s up to the rest of the clubs in Waterford to get up to their level. They’re such a well-run club and we all know that the only way to match them is to be as well-run ourselves. There’s no mystery to it.
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“If you look at their results in Munster, they’re going for four in a row outside Waterford and they’re beating county champions from all the other counties, a lot of the time by more than they’re beating teams in Waterford. You could throw a blanket over the rest of the teams here so we know what the standard is. We don’t find it demoralising or anything like that. We just have to keep pushing.”
Here’s what Abbeyside’s version of pushing looks like. They have been in the last seven under-20/21 Waterford finals in a row, albeit they’ve lost four on the bounce now to, yes, Ballygunner. They’ve been able to field two separate teams at most underage grades up to minor level and, most crucially, to keep enough players interested and animated afterwards to make up for the drip-drip of emigration.
As Moore points out, there will be a batch of invested observers tuning in from Australia this weekend, knowing they’d have been togging out for Abbeyside if they were in Ireland. On the factory floor back home, the constant flow of underage success is vital, keeping enough of them around to replenish the stocks at senior level when the leaving parties are cleared away.
In all truth, Abbeyside have a better demographic story to tell than a lot of rural clubs. Situated across the bridge from downtown Dungarvan, it is a parish that has seen its population grow significantly over the past couple of decades. Census figures show that the greater Dungarvan area has had a 35 per cent increase in people living there since 2002 – much of the expansion in house building and development has taken place in Abbeyside and out the Clonea Road.
If you’re doing the thing right, that has to feed through. It’s Abbeyside’s job to make sure it continues. The power balance in Waterford has been gradually shifting out from the city clubs, with Ballygunner making sure that hurling swallows everything whole out around Ardkean hospital. If Brickey Rangers take the county intermediate title on Saturday night, it would mean three senior clubs in Dungarvan next year. Nobody can remember that happening before.
Though Abbeyside always had hurlers, the parish is much better known for the exploits of the Ballinacourty footballers and a huge percentage of the panel are dual players. It is maybe no surprise then that they have come to the fore since the Covid-era decision to play the Waterford hurling championship before the football one, rather than in alternating spurts as had always been the case. They have been hurling continuously for the guts of two months now – and it shows.
A player such as Brian Looby has come on leaps and bounds with a sustained run of hurling, something that might not have happened had they been playing two weeks of football a month. Mikey Kiely has been their spearhead, with huge contributions from county players Conor Prunty and Michael O’Halloran.
They got Neil Montgomery back on the pitch for the first time this year in the semi-final and have been bolstered by young players such as Willie Beresford, Charlie Treen and Billy O’Connell. Those three have probably come through a little earlier than planned but they’ve held their own and more.
Will it be enough against Ballygunner? Probably not, in reality. The perennial champions have so much experience, talent and guile to call on that they will take plenty of stopping on the All-Ireland stage, not to mind on the home front. But somebody in Waterford will beat them one day. Nothing surer.
Abbeyside are here, which is the first step. And they’re built to be here for a while, which is the next. Whatever happens this weekend, they’re going the right way about being nearest the chair when the music eventually stops.
