Ballyhale’s Colin Fennelly felt Ballygunner’s victory speech was disrespectful

"It’s not something you want to hear."

Ballyhale Shamrocks’ Colin Fennelly felt that Barry Coughlan's winning speech was disrespectful following Ballygunner's win over the Kilkenny side. The two teams will meet again this Sunday, and just to throw a little bit of added spice into it, Fennelly has claimed that his club took offence to remarks made by the Ballygunner co-captain. Harry Ruddle scored a dramatic goal to win the game in the dying minutes of the All-Ireland Senior Hurling championship final last February, and when accepting the Tommy Moore Cup, Coughlan stated the following.

"And to Ballyhale, I'm not going to be patronising with ye, you're going to go down as the best club team ever. Like, literally we robbed it today, you know.

"I suppose ye have done that to other teams so I suppose it goes around, it comes around. But I mean that with most respect. You're on the road a long time and hopefully we'll see ye again next year if ye do get out again.” Fennelly has since revealed in an interview with The Irish Examiner, that he has used this for extra motivation.

“We’ve played Ballygunner a good few times over the years, so for me it’s another game. It’s a big game, so it is. It’s an All-Ireland semi-final. They bet us last year.

“Their speech at the end of the game, it’s not something you want to hear. You want that little bit of respect but, look, we’ll keep our heads down, we’ll do what we can do over the next two weeks.

"I’m sure they’ll do the same. Whoever comes out on top will come out on top and that’s it, you have to take hurling the way it is at face value. If you’re not good enough on the day, you won’t win and that’s it.”

When pressed if the speech was a sore point, the former Kilkenny star replied: “No, the sore point was we lost and that was it. You have to accept it. "We’ve always showed teams respect and you just expect it back but that’s completely separate. It’s not something you like to hear but we lost and that’s the end of it.” Related links:

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