There’s something in the water there.
Ballyhale is only a small little village in the south of Kilkenny but that small little village is Ireland’s most successful hurling club and it’s home to some of the greatest hurlers this island has ever seen.
A couple of gifted generations have come and past but the hurlers just keep on coming.
Henry Shefflin is on the line now and James Cha Fitzpatrick is on the other side of the world but hurlers breed hurlers and everybody grows up with a hurl in their hand in a place like Ballyhale.
We have new @AIB_GAA Leinster Senior Hurling Champions for 2018
Comhghairdeas @BallyhaleGAA #TheToughest pic.twitter.com/mL9y5ru7Cv
— Leinster GAA (@gaaleinster) December 2, 2018
And when that’s the case, they were never going to be left waiting for too long.
Three years was all they had to wait and though no county title for three years probably felt like some sort of famine for the people of Ballyhale, the waiting is well and truly over now.
There’s a new generation of hurlers coming through, Adrian Mullen, Eoin Cody and Evan Shefflin chief among them – none of the them a day over 21 and these are the lads who are driving on the Fennellys and the Reids and sprucing the Shamrocks up again.
It always comes in fits and bursts.
The club won their first ever Kilkenny senior title in 1978 and that team went onto win eight more titles between then and 1991. They wouldn’t win again in Kilkenny until 2006 – many of these players the sons of the heroes of the 70s, 80s and 90s and this next generation went onto win All-Irelands, Leinsters and more counties between then and 2014.
Some of them are still there and now the heroes of the 2000s, like Henry Shefflin and the Fennellys have more relatives on the team, another generation down the line – Evan Shefflin and Eoin Cody are Henry’s nephews for example, while Darren and Adrian Mullen are first cousins of the Fennellys.
That’s club GAA for you.
And when Ballyhale are at their best, there’s no match for them in the country. On Sunday, Ballyboden couldn’t get near them as the youngsters came of age and the old guard did what they do.
Some of the highlights from the game sum up just how talented these hurlers are, paying zero heed to the difficult hurling conditions.
Darkness has descended on Netwatch Dr. Cullen Park – the lights are on.
The rain has just started too – as if parts of the pitch weren’t slippy enough already! pic.twitter.com/yfO9bUd661— Shamrocks (@BallyhaleGAA) December 2, 2018
Adrian Mullen’s second half goal, switching hands and striking crisply off the hurl in the process was the perfect example but he’s been doing stuff like that for a while now.
A former Kilkenny minor star and a prodigious Kieran’s College talent, he’s been tipped for big things from when he was very young.
Adrian Mullen with his second goal for Ballyhale Shamrocks! pic.twitter.com/Yby0WlTiqq
— The GAA (@officialgaa) December 2, 2018
The first three scores on the highlight reel are from, in order, Cody, Evan Shefflin and another delicious goal from that man Adrian Mullen.
Wonderful points from Colin and Michael Fennelly, Eoin and Richie Reid are somewhere in between and you see a real complete team performance.
Ballyboden St. Endas (Dublin) v Ballyhale Shamrocks (Kilkenny) Full-Time Highlights pic.twitter.com/0ztIOx9wq6
— The GAA (@officialgaa) December 2, 2018
Will anyone be able to stop the Bally boys in the All-Ireland?
