Balllygunner 2-17 Ballyhale Shamrocks 1-19
The thunderbolt struck at precisely the right time with nothing left on the clock in this AIB All-Ireland club final. Had there been even 40 seconds, who’d have bet against TJ Reid plucking down the restart and firing over from some impossible distance or angle?
The wonder of Harry Ruddle’s intervention was that it closed the window on Ballyhale’s own store of miracles.
Yet the origins with just 15 seconds left were random and helter-skelter. Possession bobbed around the Ballygunner defence with Shamrocks nearly getting their hands on the ball. In the end, Ian Kenny emerged and played it to Paddy Leavey.
Even then, he fumbled before making an adroit recovery and passing to Peter Hogan, who popped it to Ruddle. He ran at the defence with Darragh Corcoran in hot pursuit. The crowd - a modest 17,117 - held its breath, waiting for the flick that would effectively end the match.
Ruddle swerved to the right to escape momentarily and struck a fantastic shot that arrowed right-to-left into the corner of Dean Mason’s net.
“I saw open road in front of me and there was only one thing on my mind,” said the scorer. “I was just going to take it on because everybody was bunched around the goal, I wasn’t going to get a pass off, so I said I’d go for it.”
It changed everything: the match, the championship, Ballyhale’s three-in-a-row into Waterford’s first, a contest that the champions were justifiably winning into one that Ballygunner deserved.
It changed the perception of Waterford champions simply failing to press ahead when they had the chance to one of staying in touch throughout until the opportunity arose.
Ballygunner were well fancied for this but not in the sense of being raging hot favourites. Evidence had been that the then champions were listing this season, dependent of late deliverance to greater extent than previously but they didn’t get to the cusp of making their own history with a third successive All-Ireland by accident.
They were controlled and responded well to the challenge even if their opponents were wasteful with chances, shooting 13 wides. But having fallen two behind midway through the first half, 0-5 to 0-3, all the winners’ points at that stage came from play.
Dessie Hutchinson was a constant menace but had good support from other forwards. Mikey and Kevin Mahony and Billy O’Keeffe contributed 0-7 from play and O’Keeffe nearly got in for a 29th-minute goal but Brian Butler blocked.
For all the promise of their play, Ballygunner were outscored 0-2 to 0-7 in the second quarter and trailed by three at the break, 0-7 to 0-10.
The second half was level for less than a minute, as the champions looked to have seized the initiative. TJ Reid was flawless with the placed ball and shot two galvanic points from play, the first at the start of the second half to put them four ahead and the second to restore a three-point lead after a Ballygunner rally.
Key to the third-quarter superiority was a goal by veteran replacement Eoin Cody, an alert follow-up after Colin Fennelly, in general well held, cut through the defence in the 43rd minute. Usually a banker for the goal in that position, his shot was saved by Stephen O’Keeffe, who has had an exceptional campaign.
Key to the comeback, though, was Hutchinson, whose goal five minutes later breathed new life into the challenge. Catching a ball over Darren Mullin’s head, he turned and scored to cut the margin to one, 1-14 to 1-15.
Under all of these pressures, Ballyhale always appeared to have release strategies: the scale of their scoring threat could be seen in 11 different scorers and they kept their opponents at arm’s length for most of the second half. It was only the last strike of the match that put them ahead.
Yet they had battled mightily and in the familiar person of Pauric Mahony they had the immense reassurance of his free taking, 0-7 for the day, to keep them at the table even when the cards weren’t falling right.
Did the champions even subconsciously fall back towards the end? Ballygunner certainly got on top at the back. Barry Coughlan had endured a difficult first half on Fennelly but recovered to put in a storming finish. He felt that Ballyhale had regrouped.
“I was thinking, ‘I don’t know how we’re going to come back from this,’ because it was nearly a done deal, like. The last puck of the game, you can’t really pre-empt that.
“But the mad thing is we had been talking about the opposite way around, that if we were three points up, we wouldn’t go defensive. We’d keep attacking and they actually went too defensive for the last eight minutes.
“So they actually did the wrong thing in hindsight. They got sucked down the pitch and invited us on and Harry got the ball in the right position, took a shot. I’m absolutely delighted for Harry.”
In the words of disconsolate losing manager James O’Connor, who stepped down after two years in charge, Ballygunner had “out-Ballyhaled, Ballyhale”.
Ballygunner: Stephen O'Keeffe; Ian Kenny, Barry Coughlan (joint capt.), T Foley; Ronan Power, Philip Mahony (joint capt), Shane O'Sullivan; Conor Sheahan, Paddy Leavey; Peter Hogan, Pauric Mahony (0-7, all frees), Mikey Mahony (0-3); Kevin Mahony (0-2), Dessie Hutchinson (1-3), Billy O'Keeffe (0-2).
Subs: Cormac Power for B O'Keeffe (47 mins), Harry Ruddle (1-0) for Sheahan (53 mins).
Ballyhale Shamrocks: Dean Mason; Brian Butler, Darren Mullin, Joey Holden; Evan Shefflin (0-2), Richie Reid (0-1), Darragh Corcoran (0-1); Conor Walsh, Patrick Mullen (0-1); Brian Cody (0-1), Adrian Mullen (0-2), Joe Cuddihy (0-1); TJ Reid (0-8, four frees, 1 '65'), Colin Fennelly (capt; 0-1), Eoin Cody (0-1).
Subs: Eoin Reid (1-0) for Walsh (half-time), Kevin Mullen for Butler (34 mins).
Referee: James Owens (Wexford).
