Battle of the serial winners as Ballygunner and Na Piarsaigh go head to head

Stephen O’Keeffe could have guessed Ballygunner’s reign as Munster club champions was always going to be challenged by one of the province’s ousted former rulers Na Piarsaigh.

The provincial club semi-final between the sides at the Gaelic Grounds in two weeks is a meeting of Munster hurling royalty, the defending champions against the four-time winners of the competition. For many observers it has all the bells and whistles of a Munster decider, from which the victors will be viewed as favourites to win the All-Ireland club championship.

So while there might be no belt handed out on the day, absolutely everything will be on the line in a fortnight.

“We’re under no illusions about the challenge that’s ahead of us,” says O’Keeffe, the Ballygunner goalkeeper. “They’re a fantastic team but it’s exciting as well. These are the games you want to be playing in.”

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The other Munster club SHC semi-final will see Cork champions St Finbarr’s face Clare’s Ballyea.

The Na Piarsaigh and Ballygunner rivalry was largely one-sided for many years, with the Limerick outfit beating Ballygunner in the 2015 and 2017 Munster club finals. Na Piarsaigh also got the better of their Waterford counterparts at the semi-final stages in 2011. However, Ballygunner turned the tide in 2018 when they beat the Caherdavin men in the Munster decider.

“Finally, on the third occasion, we got over the line,” recalls O’Keeffe. “Mentally it would have been tough to lose again but any time you get into Munster it’s an incredibly hard province to get out of. There are some fantastic teams in Munster and they always come in with a winning attitude and confidence from winning their county so it’s incredibly difficult.

“It took us a lot of efforts to finally get over the line and even when you got over the line we got to the Munster final again the year afterwards and we were outworked and beaten by Borris-Ileigh then, so there’s nothing that can be taken for granted and we’re well aware of that.”

Ballygunner won their first All-Ireland club title in February, while Na Piarsaigh were Tommy Moore Cup winners in 2016. Na Piarsaigh this year ended Kilmallock’s reign as Limerick champions with a 3-23 to 2-15 victory in the county final. It was Na Piarsaigh’s sixth Limerick SHC in 10 years, while Ballygunner have won nine on the bounce in Waterford, so it will be a battle of serial winners in two weeks.

“We’re playing really good internal games the last few weeks and I think the Waterford championship is a lot tougher than people realise as well,” says O’Keeffe. “We’re going to meet a fantastic team and it’s going to take everything we have to get across the line there, especially playing up in the Gaelic Grounds.”

Waterford fans have not given up hope the 2017 All-Star goalkeeper could yet be tempted back to play at venues like the Gaelic Grounds next season with the county. O’Keeffe stepped away from the intercounty game after the 2020 campaign, and the following October he confirmed he would not be returning, saying that chapter of his career was closed.

However, he has been in superb form for Ballygunner during this campaign, and with Davy Fitzgerald returning as Waterford manager it has reheated embers that O’Keeffe’s intercounty days might yet have a spark left, though the 31-year-old goalkeeper says Fitzgerald has not been in touch and insists his only focus right now is on the club front.

“Ah look, at the moment I’m fully just concentrating with Ballygunner, it’s not even on the radar at the moment,” he says about a possible Waterford return. “It’s just all full steam ahead now for two weeks against Na Piarsaigh and I can’t be even looking further than that to be honest.”

Given Ballygunner’s experience of the provincial club campaign over the last decade they have been able to grow and develop a style of play to get the best out of the talents at their disposal.

“We’re a team that plays to our strengths quite well,” adds O’Keeffe. “We don’t have a load of forwards over six foot so we kind of, not have to play a certain way, but it definitely suits the team a bit better to play it through the lines a little bit more.

“I think we’ve learned over the last few years as well, though, that when you get into a mud bath on a dog day that you need to be able to mix it up as well and go a bit more direct, and that is something that we’ve been working on a little bit more. I don’t think we’re tied to one system of play like we would have been a few years ago and coming unstuck in the mud in November.”