Ballygunner and Passage clash for the second time in a County Senior Hurling Final

The Ribbons on this year’s Waterford News and Star Cup will be red. The only question is whether it will be white or black ones that will go with them.

For five months now, twelve months have slogged it out to see who will win the right to take the trophy home with them at the end of the playing year and now that we are down to two clubs, we should know barring the need for a replay by around 4-45pm on Sunday.

Ballygunner will go into the game as the favourites and adding to the dozen titles that they have already won at this level of hurling between 1966 and 2011, but under no circumstances should Passage who are appearing in their fourth final have their chances written off.

The two sides have clashed already in the championship and on that occasion, it was Ballygunner that came out on top, almost winning by double scores but the result of that game will play no roll in this game and nor should it as the two sides will start Sunday’s games locked on the score board at no score each.

Up to that point of the championship, Passage were going well, having dropped just one point in the league section of the competition, and were safely through to the knockout stages of the competition regardless of what would have happened in that game, while Ballygunner went into the game that anything other than a win could see them bow out of the competition if other results went against them.

This game has the makings of an intriguing battle between two well matched teams.

Both sides have a powerful score getter. For Passage, Eoin Kelly has averaged around eight points a game, while for Ballygunner Pauric Mahony has averaged about ten points a game.

Eoin Kelly and Pauric Mahony are not their respective sides only scoring threats however.

For Ballygunner, JJ Hutchinson, Shane and Brian O’Sullivan have also chipped in with impressive totals in the seven games which included one game which went to extra time that Ballygunner have played in this years championship while David O’Sullivan, Harley Barnes, Barry O’Sullivan, Conor Power, John McCarthy, Stephen Power, Shane Walsh as well as Paul and Barry Coughlin have chipped in with smaller but still crucially important smaller tallies on the score sheet.

For Passage, Eoin Kelly has been ably assisted with the scoring by the likes of Owen Connors, John Whitty and Killian Fitzgerald, while Sean Hogan, Conor Carey, Stephen Mason, Richard Hurley, Pa and Rory Walsh, Jason Roche, Mitchell Baldwin and Liam Flynn have struck important scores as well.

Throughout the field on Sunday, there could well be some interesting battles fought out. One of them well be between Noel Connors at centre back for Passage and Pauric Mahony at centre forward for Ballygunner, and the winner of this battle could well be the one whose side will climb the steps of the stand in Walsh Park to be presented with the winners trophy by County Board Chairman Tom Cunningham.

Barring any injuries or dip in form in any of the players on both sides, to pick the starting fifteen on both sides could well prove to be a simple enough task.

For Passage Eddie Lynch will start between the posts. Jason Flood, Mark Wyse and Joseph Upton will form the full back line, while Noel Connors will be at centre back. Jason Roche will start on one wing, but who starts on the other could be interesting. In recent games they have used Stephen Mason and Pa Walsh there.

Which ever of the duo that miss out on a wing back spot however will start in the middle of the field along side John Whitty.

In attack, Owen Connors would be expected to start at the number ten position, with Killian Fitzgerald expected to start in the middle and Conor Carey on the other side of the half forward line, but these two could well be changed.

In the full forward line, Eoin Kelly has proved to be a thorn on the side of many a full back line this year operating on the edge of the square while the final place could well be between Rory Walsh, Sean Hogan, Richard Hurley and Liam Flynn.

Ballygunner’s starting line out could have less ‘ifs and buts’ to it. Since they played Dungarvan in the penultimate round of games in the league section of the competition, they are unbeaten and in this time they have tended to stick to the same starting line out with just one or two changes to the team.

Stephen O’Keeffe will start in goals. In front of him will be Barry Coughlan and will be flanked by Stephen O’Keeffe and Paul Coughlan. Wayne Hutchinson will start at centre back and will have Shane Walsh and Alan Kirwan either side of him.

In the middle of the field will be Philip Mahony and Shane O’Sullivan and if they can get on top in this game, then that could well prove to be the winning and loosing of the game.

In attack, Pauric Mahony will be at centre forward and will have David O’Sullivan and Harley Barnes either side of him, but Gary Molloy could well also come into consideration.

Brian O’Sullivan and JJ Hutchinson could well start in the corners with the place in between likely to be fought out by Barry O’Sullivan and Stephen Power.

For me, while great progress is made this year in Passage under Peter Queally, this game is Ballygunner’s to loose. They appear to have the stronger team on paper and over the past few games appear to be the more settled side, making the minimum about of changes to their starting team.

They say if something is not broken, don’t try and fix it. Ballygunner appear to have got into a nice rhythm of late and therefore as much as I would love to see Passage win a first title, I expect Ballygunner to add a thirteenth to their roll of honour.