FROM ONE OF the great hurling families, alongside brothers Philip and Pauric and assorted Foley and O’Sullivan cousins, lifting the Tommy Moore Cup along with Peter Hogan was the stuff of dreams for Ballygunner’s Mikey Mahony.
As experienced as The Gunners are with all the big days, there was still that creeping responsibility or curse, whichever way you want to look at it, that they had a single All-Ireland to their name.
That can cause some nerves in the lead-in to games, but Mahony embraced the responsibility, reframing it as something to relax himself with.
“You try to approach things with an optimistic point of view. The one thing I’ve probably enjoyed personally about the captaincy is that you might have different roles to kind of keep yourself busy on a match day or even if it’s in the lead-up to the match,” he said after the final victory over Loughrea.
“You’re actually staying on task and you’re doing different jobs or whatever it is. Personally, I feel like it’s suited me a bit.”
It’s been four years since their win over Shamrocks Ballyhale, something of a smash and grab given the way Harry Ruddle struck for a late goal, leaving the Kilkenny side no time to fashion a response.
The win over Loughrea was similar to their semi-final win over St Martin’s. A worthy opponent kept pace for the first 35 minutes or so, but then Ballygunner found another gear altogether. Few can live with them on those days.
And the spark for their improvement was a goal from Mahony himself when the ball was dished out to him by his joint captain Peter Hogan and Mahony’s clever angle meant he had a lot of grass between him and Loughrea goalkeeper Gearóid Loughnane and he had plenty to do before he stitched his shot to the net, heralding a flurry of Ballygunner scores.
“I probably wouldn’t be known for getting the goals,” he modestly says.
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“But funnily enough, myself and Paddy Leavey were joking beforehand and we said it might be the day you’d bag one. I don’t know if you talk it into existence or something like that but it makes it all the sweeter. It might have been a bit lucky in the end but once it hits the back of the net, that’s all that matters.”
Seeing the younger players come off the bench to make an impact, seeing the names change from one winter to the next, soon reminds you that nothing in sport changes quicker than the team sheets.
“The team evolves every year and there are times when you maybe can’t afford to carry the losses from the past,” says Mahony.
“For guys like Mark Hartley and Aaron O’Neill, that was their first kind of taste of an All-Ireland final. But from a personal point of view and maybe for some of the older lads – I’m not sure if I’m including myself with the older lads yet! – it probably has played on us, not getting the second one, only naturally.
“I think it’s only because we’ve lost big games and we’ve been so close. We lost to Ballyhale, they won the All-Ireland. We lost to St Thomas’, they won the All-Ireland. But we’re just absolutely delighted to get that second one.”
There is a comfort, however, in losing to teams who can be put in the very top bracket. Especially when they go on to seal the deal.
“Maybe if you were to turn the clock back 12 months, we probably did think we were slipping as a team. We probably showed a bit more of a proactive mindset and said that we were actually going to go and do something about improving,” Mahoney said.
Mikey Mahony in the pre-match parade. James Crombie / INPHO
James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
“Maybe we’ve done that. The results would certainly suggest that we have, in comparison to where we were in maybe the last three years.”
Since then, with a fresh manager in Jason Ryan and an All-Ireland in the bag, it’s an ideal time to assess where he might have sensed some slippage.
“I don’t know did we maybe not feel as fresh going into games, whereas this year it was probably evident in all of our games. We probably had that edge that we might have lacked in previous years,” he explains.
“It’s difficult to kind of put your finger on it. Maybe it’s just a personal mindset kind of thing. Success can often soften people’s mindset. Like, if you’re going to the gym, are you going to the gym and giving 100 per cent or are you going to the gym and giving maybe 95 per cent? All those little things add up over the course of 12 months. Look, I think we probably got it right this year.”
The rewards for doing that extra rep are in front of him now though.
“To do it twice, and to do it after all the heartbreak over the last couple of years, is absolutely a dream come true.”
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'To do it after all the heartbreak is absolutely a dream come true'
FROM ONE OF the great hurling families, alongside brothers Philip and Pauric and assorted Foley and O’Sullivan cousins, lifting the Tommy Moore Cup along with Peter Hogan was the stuff of dreams for Ballygunner’s Mikey Mahony.
As experienced as The Gunners are with all the big days, there was still that creeping responsibility or curse, whichever way you want to look at it, that they had a single All-Ireland to their name.
That can cause some nerves in the lead-in to games, but Mahony embraced the responsibility, reframing it as something to relax himself with.
“You try to approach things with an optimistic point of view. The one thing I’ve probably enjoyed personally about the captaincy is that you might have different roles to kind of keep yourself busy on a match day or even if it’s in the lead-up to the match,” he said after the final victory over Loughrea.
It’s been four years since their win over Shamrocks Ballyhale, something of a smash and grab given the way Harry Ruddle struck for a late goal, leaving the Kilkenny side no time to fashion a response.
The win over Loughrea was similar to their semi-final win over St Martin’s. A worthy opponent kept pace for the first 35 minutes or so, but then Ballygunner found another gear altogether. Few can live with them on those days.
And the spark for their improvement was a goal from Mahony himself when the ball was dished out to him by his joint captain Peter Hogan and Mahony’s clever angle meant he had a lot of grass between him and Loughrea goalkeeper Gearóid Loughnane and he had plenty to do before he stitched his shot to the net, heralding a flurry of Ballygunner scores.
“I probably wouldn’t be known for getting the goals,” he modestly says.
“But funnily enough, myself and Paddy Leavey were joking beforehand and we said it might be the day you’d bag one. I don’t know if you talk it into existence or something like that but it makes it all the sweeter. It might have been a bit lucky in the end but once it hits the back of the net, that’s all that matters.”
Seeing the younger players come off the bench to make an impact, seeing the names change from one winter to the next, soon reminds you that nothing in sport changes quicker than the team sheets.
“The team evolves every year and there are times when you maybe can’t afford to carry the losses from the past,” says Mahony.
“For guys like Mark Hartley and Aaron O’Neill, that was their first kind of taste of an All-Ireland final. But from a personal point of view and maybe for some of the older lads – I’m not sure if I’m including myself with the older lads yet! – it probably has played on us, not getting the second one, only naturally.
“I think it’s only because we’ve lost big games and we’ve been so close. We lost to Ballyhale, they won the All-Ireland. We lost to St Thomas’, they won the All-Ireland. But we’re just absolutely delighted to get that second one.”
There is a comfort, however, in losing to teams who can be put in the very top bracket. Especially when they go on to seal the deal.
“Maybe if you were to turn the clock back 12 months, we probably did think we were slipping as a team. We probably showed a bit more of a proactive mindset and said that we were actually going to go and do something about improving,” Mahoney said.
“Maybe we’ve done that. The results would certainly suggest that we have, in comparison to where we were in maybe the last three years.”
Since then, with a fresh manager in Jason Ryan and an All-Ireland in the bag, it’s an ideal time to assess where he might have sensed some slippage.
“I don’t know did we maybe not feel as fresh going into games, whereas this year it was probably evident in all of our games. We probably had that edge that we might have lacked in previous years,” he explains.
“It’s difficult to kind of put your finger on it. Maybe it’s just a personal mindset kind of thing. Success can often soften people’s mindset. Like, if you’re going to the gym, are you going to the gym and giving 100 per cent or are you going to the gym and giving maybe 95 per cent? All those little things add up over the course of 12 months. Look, I think we probably got it right this year.”
The rewards for doing that extra rep are in front of him now though.
“To do it twice, and to do it after all the heartbreak over the last couple of years, is absolutely a dream come true.”
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Ballygunner Champions Again club Hurling Mikey Mikey Mahony Top Guns