HOW DO YOU break a hegemony?
Right now across several counties in all codes, we are looking at the rise of the superclub.
Ballygunner in Waterford. Kilcoo in Down. Kilmacud in Dublin.
And of course, Ballyhale Shamrocks.
Going for their sixth consecutive county championship in Kilkenny – the Tom Walsh Cup – it’s nonetheless been a funny year for them domestically after their All-Ireland triumph in January.
For a variety of reasons, they have not been able to field Brian Cody, Ronan Corcoran, Joey Holden and Joey Cuddihy.
Colin Fennelly has been effective in games despite playing through a calf injury, and jetting in from Dubai where he is now living and working.
Five Kilkenny titles in a row. Three of the last four All-Ireland titles secured. How do you motivate a team that have won it all, over and over?
You have to find an angle nonetheless. This Sunday they have a chancing of downing the third consecutive city team on the trot. They scraped by Dicksboro in the quarter-final 1-20 to 0-21 before blitzing James Stephens 5-19 to 0-14 in the semi final.
Now, O’Loughlin Gaels stand in their road. The angle, if there is one for Ballyhale, is how they aren’t being fancied in the bookies’ shops, in print and on the airwaves.
Manager Pat Hoban has been out in local media already, warning, “The majority of pundits have said that Ballyhale would not win this year’s county final. They have, at every point along the road, been saying that we are missing too many players and we’re starting to slip.
“The players that are on the field for Ballyhale have great pride in themselves. I’m not saying it hurts them, but they are winners, and they will go on and try to prove that they can win no matter what 15 is on the field.”
The man in the opposite dugout from him is 2011 Kilkenny All Ireland winning captain Brian Hogan. He pays no heed to the favourite’s tag and where it lies. To him, it’s just another instalment of a rivalry in which O’Loughlin Gaels have plenty of successes.
“A lot of our lads would have played against the Shamrock at underage, Adrian Mullen and Eoin Cody, that group would have had a good strong underage team with Ballyhale and it sort of coincided with a team that we had as well, a number of lads who will be playing on Sunday,” Hogan points out.
“They will be very familiar with each other. There’s no secret. We have huge respect for them but there’s no belief that they are invincible or anything like that.”
Constant exposure, winning the odd game against them in league action gives enough hope that it can be brought to Nowlan Park on Sunday.
2016 is not that long ago, when O’Loughlin Gaels last turned over Ballyhale in the county final.
2021 is even closer when just four points separated the two.
“They have always been competitive matches. It’s not the case that they are going through leagues and beating everyone by large scores,” explains Hogan.
“This year in the league alone they have been beaten a couple of times, which helps even though they have been missing players.”
The noises coming out of Clonlara after their 15-year wait for a Clare hurling championship ended last weekend was the difference brought by the introduction of performance psychologist Nollaig O’Sullivan.
That approach might not be widespread in Kilkenny. Hogan has a number of serious operators in his backroom team however, including Mickey Comerford who has been attached to the Kilkenny senior set-up for years, along with Nyah Egan who was working with the Roscommon footballers on their strength and conditioning this year.
Even the act of enrolling a sports psychologist might be tantamount to admitting an inferiority complex, so they press on.
“As a management group we are trying to be very real with the lads. We know them, we have a personal relationship with them,” he says.
“Having hurled with some of them and knowing all of them from a young age growing up. From that perspective you want to feel you are connecting with the lads. Having real conversations with them, being genuine with them so that they feel they can speak to you openly if there is any stuff going on in the background that you are not necessarily aware of.”
There is nothing to fear from Ballyhale, he believes as he strips away their mystique.
“From our own perspective, we have a competitive track record against them. In 2010 we would have beaten them when they were going for the five in a row and we went on to win the championship then.
“In 2015 we beat them in the semi final when they were All-Ireland champions and we beat them in the county final in 2016.
“So some of the boys would have been playing that day. They got the better of us in 2021 but there was nothing in it, the last five minutes, their experience told a little, TJ Reid coming out.
“They were always competitive matches. Maybe they would have enjoyed the better of it, but we were still able to come out on top in key matches.”
He adds, “I think there’s a huge respect in Kilkenny for them. It would be different if they were trouncing teams but Kilkenny is highly competitive. There are twelve senior clubs and there isn’t a huge amount between them.
“The way I would look at it is; the rest of the clubs need to be hurling at somewhere between 80 – 90% of their capabilities to beat each other. Whereas with the Shamrocks, they can sometimes afford to be a little bit below par simply because of the firepower they have.”
Let’s just see.