Ballygunner will be hoping to keep their phenomenal run going this weekend as they aim for back to back Provincial Club Senior hurling Championship titles.
The current Munster and All-Ireland champions are gearing up for Saturday's showdown with Clare kingpins, Ballyea (3:15pm in FBD Semple Stadium).
The Gunners produced arguably their greatest ever 2nd-half display two weeks ago at the TUS Gaelic Grounds as they dethroned Na Piarsaigh after trailing by five points at the break. A 2nd-half Patrick Fitzgerald goal brought them right back into the game and a tour de force from Pauric Mahony who ended the game with 0-13 saw the Waterford champions through by five points in an incredible turnaround (2-20 to 2-15).
Could Patrick Fitzgerald start for Waterford next season?
pic.twitter.com/w4LqeXHOGA— OurGame.ie (@OurGameHQ) November 20, 2022
The spirit and togetherness among the Ballygunner group is something that stands out and attacker Pauric Mahony who picked up the man of the match award in the recent Munster semi-final says it's what they pride themselves on; "That's something that we've probably been building up over the last couple of years and there's a good trust within the set-up too which is obviously very important when you are in situations like we were last Sunday week, where we were five points down at half-time. I suppose you need to kind of stick to the game plan and that's what we done in the 2nd-half because there was a hell of a lot of positives in the 1st-half too, it's just we needed to do more of them positives in the 2nd-half and thankfully we were able to bring that with us for the full 30 minutes".
Ballygunner had seventeen points to spare over Ballyea in last year's Munster Quarter-Final in Ennis and Mahony who featured on Monday evening's "On The Ball" programme says they'll be taking nothing for granted this weekend; We're under no illusion of the challenge that we face on Saturday. If you just look back at their record within Clare over the last five or six years, I think they've won 4 of the last 6, if you even go back to the 2018 (Munster) semi-final inside in Walsh Park where they had us beaten right up until the last puck of the game. Again like, if you look down through their team sheet it's full of inter-county players past and present across each line so it's going to be a huge challenge and we're going to need to bring our A game".
WLR will broadcast Saturday's game live thanks to George Corbett Skoda, with commentary team Kieran O' Connor and Michael Ryan with coverage underway from 3:05pm.
