Deise hurling history could be created in Croke Park

All roads out of Ballysaggart on Saturday morning as well as out of many other areas of Waterford, North Cork and South Tipperary lead to Croke Park to support the Waterford and Munster Junior Club Hurling Champions bid to create hurling History and become the first Waterford side to win a Club Hurling All-Ireland final.

Ballysaggart have done all that is asked of them over the past twelve months or so, and they will be leaving no stone unturned to become the first Waterford club side in win at GAA head quarters on Saturday afternoon.

For a number of weeks and months now, the Western, County and Provincial champions have been well organised.

Unlike other sides that have won the junior or Intermediate Club Championship in the county, after going on to play in Munster they took the competition very serious.

In the western championship they had wins over Kilgobinet, Geraldine’s, Colligan and Saint Mary’s in the group stages of the competition, with their only loss coming in the game against Modeligo.

In the western semi final they needed two attempts to beat the only side to beat them since the start of the championship back in May of last year, and in the Western final they accounted for Colligan much easier than most would have expected.

It was the same story in the county final. Many fancied Tramore going into the county final as they had appealed the decision to be relegated at the end of 2012. However Ballysaggart as was the case in a number of their games prior to the Walsh Park clash proved too strong, and won the game by nine points.

Once in Munster it was much the same. They beat the Cork Champions Grenagh much more convincingly than the 1-12 to 1-9 score line suggests.

Knockshegowna did not win the Tipperary championship and did not even appear in the final, but represented the county in Munster after two second string teams reached the Premier Counties junior final. On the day Ballysaggart again proved too strong winning 1-12 to 1-5.

The Munster final was played in Mallow on December 8 and again Ballysaggart proved to be the strongest team on show easily beating the Limerick champions Feenagh-Kilmeedy on a 3-12 to 0-15 score line.

Last time out, Ballysaggart played Sligo senior champions and Connacht Junior Champions Calry-St Joseph’s at Tullamore and from a very early stage there was only going to be one outcome to that game, as the West Waterford side ran out 4-13 to 0-8 winners.

Creggan Kickhams are going to put up a different threat to all other clubs that Ballysaggart have come up against.

They can be expected to play a typical Antrim and Ulster type of hurling, with plenty of ground hurling played which can cause many sides so many problems as they are not used to playing against it.

Last time out, Creggan Kickhams had a five point win over Fullen Gaels from Manchester in the semi finals.

The exiles went into the game a fancied side having reached the All-Ireland Final last year where they were beaten by Kilkenny side – Thomastown.

Owen McCann finished as top scorer in that game for the Ulster side, with seven points of his side’s 2-10 behind his name on the score sheet and is clearly a player that the Ballysaggart lads will have to keep an eye on.

McCann who lined out in the half forward line for his side was inspirational. In addition to scoring seven points he picked out teenager Conor Small with a sixty metre free midway through the first half and the teenager made no mistake in hammering the ball past the exiles defence for a well taken goal.

He was also instrumental in picking out Conleth McGrenaghan in the opening minutes of the game again from a free for his sides first of two first half goals.

At the break last time out they found themselves 1-6 to 2-2 behind having played against a strong win, but in the second half they opened up more and used the wind to its full advantage to pull off a win.

In the second half, McCann proved unerring from frees as he added five more to the two that he hit in the first half.

The fact that all of McCann’s scores the last day came from frees will be a plus for Ballysaggart.

Right up to this point they have proven to be disciplined at the back. While in attack Stephen Bennett and to a slightly lesser extent his younger brother Shane has taken all the plaudits, it is their defensive unit that is the real hero’s of the team.

Throughout the championship they are very difficult to break down.

They have kept four clean sheets in their thirteen games to date.

The first of these was against Geraldine’s in the penultimate round of games in the league stages of the western championship.

They again kept a clean sheet against Colligan in the Western Final and then against Feenagh-Kilmeedy in the Munster Final and again last time out against Calry-St Josephs.

If keeping out goals is proving to be somewhat of a regular event for Ballysaggart, so too is scoring goals.

They hit five in their first western championship game against Kilgobinet. They hit four against Calry-St Josephs in the All-Ireland semi final and up to now they have hit three goals in the games that they have played against Colligan (in both the league and in the Western final) and again against Feenagh-Kilmeedy.

The only game that they have failed to score any goal in up to now was against Geraldine’s while Modeligo are the only side to hit two or more goals against them, firstly in the only game they have lost en-route to the All-Ireland Final and again in the drawn Western semi final.

When the 2013 championships began in Waterford, most would have said that the counties best chance of appearing in a Croke Park All-Ireland Club Final would be for who ever would win the senior hurling final. But anything is possible and Ballysaggart have shown this. Now that they are in the All-Ireland Final, they will have to believe that anything is possible.

Ballysaggart will travel to Croke Park with a huge support. The population of the Parish is widely reported to be in the region of 250 people, but in most of their recent games that have generated support in the region of four or five times that number from across Waterford as well as North Cork and South Tipperary. They have also outnumbered the support received by their opponents since the Munster Championship began and this weekend is expected to be no different.

Ballysaggart will know that they face their most difficult task to date this weekend, but they will have to be confident in achieving what they are setting out to do.

The have a nice mix of youth and experience in their side. They are playing a good brand of hurling, and no doubt will have heard from Davy Fitzgerald who managed Clare to All-Ireland glory last year and who worked with Ballysaggart selector Pat Bennett in his time with Waterford will have offered words of advice to the team, and maybe have taken a training session or two with them.

Last time out playing two of the three Bennett brothers in the full forward line worked a treat.

Will the same happen again this time? Well if something is not broken why try and repair it.

Croke Park is a huge pitch, and if the players further out the field were able to supply the ball they have up to now into the Bennett Brothers, then there is no reason why they will not cause all sorts of trouble to the Antrim clubs defence and go on to win what would be a first ever men’s club All-Ireland for Waterford.

Don’t forget, if you can’t get to the game in Croke Park on Saturday, W.L.R.fm will have the game live on the air from about 3-15pm.