At the end of a tragic year, Ballyhale make it five-in-a-row in Kilkenny

Kilkenny SHC final: Shamrocks Ballyhale 1-21 James Stephens 2-11

Ballyhale never mind going back to the well. That’s what the well is for.

Their status as the ultimate boundary-pushers in Kilkenny is secure for another year after they rounded out the county’s first ever five-in-a-row here and joined Tullaroan at the top of the roll of honour. There’s no telling where they’ll stop. Only that it won’t be soon.

TJ Reid was a class apart yet again, steering the game to his own liking and engineering his 11th county medal in the process. He’ll be 35 next month, yet his influence over this final was a cut above everyone else, including All Stars and Young Hurlers of the Year well over a decade his junior.

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In time, this will be Eoin Cody’s team and Adrian Mullen’s team and maybe Niall Shorthall’s team and Joey Cuddihy’s team. But none of them can be the man when The Man is still doing his rounds.

Reid scored six points here and created another four. Even the one stain on his bib came after one of the game’s highlights – an AFL-style catch over a thicket of bodies in midfield. It was such a spectacular take that even the subsequent missed free only took a little of the good out of it.

When it was over and everyone in the 5,730 crowd had taken a good drenching from the post-full-time monsoon, Reid reflected on what they’d done. It has been another year of tragedy in Ballyhale, with untimely deaths in the club making national news – and not for the first time either. Another county title won’t do all the healing but they see it as the least they can do.

“We carried those names with us all year,” Reid said afterwards. “The one word that we used this year was to dedicate. And so we aimed to dedicate this county final to those families. Because we’re after carrying that coffin through Ballyhale too many times. And it’s not a nice thing to be seeing. Today was about us being together as a group and seeing the families around us here now gives us that bit of a lift.

“Every year there’s been tragedies and it hurts us very badly. Today was about carrying those soldiers with us and we gave it everything. We think hurling is tough but what those families are going through is what’s really tough. For us to get to sixth gear there was easy work.”

They took their time about getting there. For a while in the first half it looked as though they’d forgotten the date. For long stretches, James Stephens more than had their measure – the notion that Ballyhale would blow them out of it didn’t survive the opening quarter.

Tadhg O’Dwyer was in electric form at corner-forward for The Village and he took Joey Holden for a couple of points inside the opening 20 minutes.

Niall Brassil whipped a brilliant score from the sideline and when Eoin Guilfoyle broke onto a loose ball and buried his shot past Dean Mason on 21 minutes, the underdogs were 1-4 to 0-4 ahead. But for some errant shooting, it would have been more.

The goal acted as a smoke alarm for Ballyhale and they immediately went about whipping tea towels around it to turn it off.

They rattled off the next seven points in a row before half-time and the rollcall of scorers tells you all you need to know about the arsenal they carry with them into these games. Three from Reid, two from Cody, one each from Colin Fennelly and Richie Reid. Royalty.

It all washed out as a 0-11 to 1-5 lead at the break for Ballyhale, despite The Village’s excellent start. And when Paddy Mullen got the line soon after the restart for a senseless stroke in front of the dug-outs, all it did was make Ballyhale knuckle down again.

They scored six of the next eight points – Reid potted two of them and had the last pass for two more. When Cuddihy flicked the ball up to himself to bury their goal on 53 minutes, there was nothing left to say or see.

James Stephens: Gavin Costigan; Luke Murphy, Diarmuid Cody, Shane O’Donoghue; Niall Delaney, Cian Kenny (0-1), Niall Mullins; William Spencer (0-1), Conor Browne (1-1); Andy Parsons (0-1), Niall Brassil (0-5, 0-3 frees), Matthew Ruth; Tadhg O’Dwyer (0-2), Eoin Guilfoyle (1-0), Luke Scanlon. Subs: Ross Whelan for Ruth, 49 mins; David Hennessy for Parsons, 55 mins; Ethan Butler for Scanlon, 58 mins

Shamrocks Ballyhale: Dean Mason; Brian Butler, Joey Holden, Darren Mullen; Evan Shefflin (0-1), Richie Reid (0-1), Darragh Corcoran (0-2); Ronan Corcoran (0-1), Paddy Mullen; Adrian Mullen (0-1), TJ Reid (0-6, 0-3 frees, 0-1 65), Eoin Cody (0-3); Eoin Kenneally, Colin Fennelly (0-3), Joey Cuddihy (1-2). Subs: Niall Shorthall (0-1) for Keneally, 47 mins; Killian Corcoran for Cuddihy, 62 mins

Referee: Conor Everard (Graigue-Ballycallan).