ALL-IRELAND CLUB HURLING SEMI-FINAL BALLYHALE SHAMROCKS v NEWTOWNSHANDRUM: KEITH DUGGAN talks to Newtownshandrum manager Phil Noonan and Balylhale's Brendan Mason ahead of tomorrow's intriguing clash at Semple Stadium
THROUGH THE floods and misery of last winter, the hurling clubs of Ballyhale and Newtownshandrum quietly went about their business and tried to ignore the probability their paths would lead to here and now: Thurles, on Valentine’s Day, for a tantalising game of hurling.
It seems odd that two of the clubs whose constant ambition and self-invention mirror those of their respective counties have not met before. But they have jousted for the same prize in separate paths up to this stage and both share a keen urge to atone for All-Ireland losses that they have suffered at the hands of Portumna, the Galway champions.
There is so much riding on this match one senses something epochal about it. Both teams have lived on the edge in games, Newtownshandrum just about held off Waterford champions Ballygunner in the Munster final while Ballyhale, past masters at the art of survival, conjured an injury-time score from Eoin Reid to bring a riveting tie against Oulart-the-Ballagh into added time. Their Leinster final victory, over Tullamore, was less dramatic and for the past two months, both clubs have been preparing for a match that has been a long time in coming.
“We have never met Ballyhale, even in a challenge game,” notes Phil Noonan, the Newtownshandrum manager. “It is incredible to think, really.”
Reflecting on their successes last December, Noonan pointed out the semi-final would present a vintage clash of styles reflective of the respective counties. But whatever about the contrasts on the field, the Ballyhale and Newtownshandrum stories run upon similar lines.
Both are small villages, with a population of about 1,000 people. Both places have families synonymous with the game – the Fennellys and Shefflins and Reids in Ballyhale, the O’Connors and Noonans and Mulcahys in Newtownshandrum. Both clubs have produced peerless teams in recent years. And both, in this semi-final, are gunning for another crack at Portumna, the modern giants from Galway who sent Ballyhale packing at this stage last year and inflicted a memorable loss on Newtown in the 2006 All-Ireland final.
It is a huge game for both clubs.
After Portumna filched five goals from Ballyhale last February, Brendan Mason happened to bump into Birr’s Brian Whelahan as he was leaving the ground. Mason had come up against the Whelehan at under-age level and marked him several times when Ballyhale played Birr.
“You gave them too big a start,” Whelahan told him. Mason joined James McGarry and Michael Fennelly in the senior management team prior to this season and on several times over the winter, Whelehan’s words came into his mind.
The All-Ireland club championship has an unwieldy structure that affords successful teams almost no break but the one benefit is that teams knocked out at the semi-final stages do not have too long to reflect on defeats.
“When we played our first championship game against Ballycallan, we weren’t thinking about the county final or anything else. We just couldn’t wait to get out hurling again and I think our very first game was against Johnstown in the league and we got that Portumna game out of our system.
“The players are their own biggest knockers and we know that we made mistakes that day that we do not normally make. So all through this championship, we have just taken each game. They are a very competitive group.
“We took a break after the Tullamore game but when we met the following Tuesday night just to collect gear from the players, they were all looking to go back training again straight away.”
In Newtownshandrum, they had been training 17 nights a month until they won the Munster championship. Then, they decided to tailor it to seven nights a month. “And some of those were indoors because of the very inclement weather we had in December,” says Noonan. “But, yeah, one of the big difficulties for all clubs is having the focus to keep going year after year.
“And because of the way the club championship breaks, it is particularly tough. You can put management structures in place and have all the training but much of it comes down to the players, they have to want to be here and that has been the thing for us with this group of players, from the lads who won the three under-21s (1988/’89/’90) through to the first county in 2000, we have had players who just want to hurl.
“Even going back to the first title that the club won, the Junior B in 1936, we have won a county title in every decade since to even though the past few years have been great for the club, that tradition of fighting above our weight has been there the whole time.”
In Ballyhale, Mason has been at involved in training under-age teams for most of his adult life. He was there when the group that included Henry Shefflin, Tom Coogan and Aidan Cummins began to dominate at their grades and saw the early flashes of brilliance that James “Cha” Fitzpatrick exhibited at the Féile competition of 1998 on a team that included James Connolly.
He acknowledges coaching such exceptional players has added to the pleasure of the task and even though the emergence of these players is down to countless hours of repetition and coaching more than anything else, he does sometimes marvel at the number of players that have come through in recent years.
Sometimes, strangers will appear in the stands at Ballyhale sessions, hurling people down from Ulster clubs there to pick up a few tips and just enjoy the training. The crucial thing is nobody in the club ever takes it for granted that it will all keep happening automatically.
“There are more distractions now for people so it is hard in a way. But if you go back to, I suppose, the first Ballyhale team of 1978, there are all sorts of connections with that team running through this team, this is the crop of that crop, in a sense.
“In Ballyhale, hurling is the parish in many ways. But that is easily said too. A lot of these players went to school together, they socialise together. They see one another every day some of them, so hurling is there, it is kind of always in the background of conversations. When I started hurling you would even be travelling to games together, sharing cars and getting lifts with other people. It means people are living in hurling.”
Mason shrugs off his own career but county minor and under-21 appearances and a place, at just 17, on the Ballyhale side that won the All-Ireland club championship in 1990 against Ballybrown, points to serious talent. It did not happen for him at senior level.
“I slipped away,” he says, a simple phrase that probably covers a universe of regrets among promising GAA players. The choices Mason made – or failed to make – was one of his motivations for getting involved with the club.
“I felt I wanted to help young players coming through to do with their game what I suppose I failed to do with mine. It is easy to see afterwards what I should have done along the way but at the time it isn’t so clear. And that spurred me on, just to see others push on where I failed.”
When James McGarry was recruited this year, Michael Fennelly asked Mason to come on board and he didn’t hesitate. He had already been involved as a Kilkenny minor selector and enjoyed the experience.
“James’s knowledge of club hurling is such that when he came into our dressingroom he knew every single hurler in the squad. He has spent years in dressingrooms listening to Brian Cody and his head is well screwed on.
“I remember being at a meeting one night and when he speaks, all the boys listen. I was watching them and they were looking straight at him, really concentrating the entire time.”
Noonan had been happily serving as a selector for Newtownshandrum and laughs at the suggestion that the roulette wheel had stopped at him.
“I suppose the others had done their three years and in any dressingroom, people need to hear a different voice after a while.”
Noonan has a vivid recollection of Bernie O’Connor coaching the group of Newtownshandrum boys and instructing them in the swift, short-passing game that would evolve into a recognisable club patent. At the time, it just seemed suited to the light, athletic group of players that were coming through but its impact was immediate.
“I think Bernie saw we had some good young athletes and he felt that this possession game would suit us and it quickly became a natural style that suited the team. That Ben and Jerry and Pat Mulcahy featured on Cork teams probably gave a boost to the club – although Newtownshandrum has had Cork players in the past. And I suppose after we starting winning, the possession game that we play became well known. It was just a style that we found suited us.
“I suppose in earlier decades, the style of hurling played around the country was more uniform but teams will adapt to suit themselves now. And whatever about the contrasting styles in this game, I do think it should be a terrific contest.
“We are probably outsiders and that is fair enough, Ballyhale’s record is terrific. But you know, Thurles on a dry day in February and two pure hurling teams is something to look forward to.”
Mason is equally intrigued by the game. In some ways, Ballyhale’s season spun on those nerve-wracking last minutes down at Wexford Park, 2-13 to 1-17 on the scoreboard and an emotional home crowd willing Oulart on to what would have been a seismic victory.
“I always felt there was a chance. I think it is because I have seen these players from when they were very young and they just don’t panic. You know that until the whistle blows, they won’t give up on it and they will always believe that they can get the score.
“So it was fantastic when Eoin Reid put it over but there was a calmness about the side too that just comes with having played together for so long.”
He can’t be sure about how calm Thurles will be tomorrow. Mason expects the match to start in fifth gear without ever really slowing down.
“I think the substitutes are going to be needed on both sides,” he says. “It is going to be exciting.”
That’s for sure.
Whatever about across Ireland, the frost won’t be long lifting from Semple Stadium tomorrow.
