Subdued celebrations for Loughrea after late red sours win over SlaughtneilOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\nBy the 37th minute, the 2022 champions had just five points to their name as they trailed by three. From there to the hour, they outscored the Wexford champions 0-14 to 0-1, missing just two shots from 16 in that hot-handed streak. <\/p>\n
The experienced heads of Dessie Hutchinson, who collected a second consecutive man of the match award, and Pauric Mahony contributed 0-7 each. But it was the introduction of teenager Mark Hartley which provided the spark in front of 3,373 fans at Semple Stadium. <\/p>\n
The minor graduate came on in the 37th minute when the 12-in-a-row Waterford kingpins were down by three. They would score the next eight points without reply. Hartley played a key role in five of those scores: pointing one, assisting two, and winning two converted frees.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s strange how things can happen. We would have felt that they were enforced changes with Patrick (Fitzgerald) and Kevin (Mahony),\u201d said Ryan, adding both players had sustained \u201clittle knocks\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nobody on the sideline can claim there was a tactical, ingenious move or anything like that. It was a change that was enforced due to an injury. <\/p>\n
\u201cMark\u2019s mobile, really intelligent. Some of his passing, skill set, and striking was really good.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Ballygunner’s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/T3G4JJKT35ROESPOS2HEFVBOEU.jpg\")
Ballygunner\u2019s Ian Kenny with Michael Coleman of St Martin’s. Photograph: James Crombie\/Inpho <\/p>\n
Superb defensive showings by the likes of Eoin O\u2019Leary on Fitzgerald and Daith\u00ed Waters on Pauric Mahony had restrained Ballygunner to 10 shots in the first half. Once it opened up, the D\u00e9ise champions doubled their output to 20 shots after the break. <\/p>\n
That first half ended 0-6 to 0-4 in St Martin\u2019s favour. Despite the low scoring, it was an absorbing and attritional contest with both teams running the sliotar from deep and swarm tackling at every opportunity.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talk about the game of hurling, how many scores there is, and how open it can be at times, but it was just so congested and so tight, and a lot of errors and an awful lot of rucks. It was fairly high octane,\u201d said Ryan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a lot of traffic around the middle of the field, so you\u2019d get the ball and you\u2019re just running into traffic and you\u2019d need to shift it really fast.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you told me beforehand that none of their forwards would score from play in the first half, I\u2019d have said we\u2019ll definitely go in winning at half-time, and we didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ballygunner could\u2019ve been even further behind at that juncture. In the 22nd minute, Michael Coleman was brought to ground as the sliotar skittled to the net. Se\u00e1n Stack gave a free out for a throw ball. Martin\u2019s had solid claims for either a penalty or an own goal as the sliotar was knocked free by Ian Kenny\u2019s boot.<\/p>\n
![\"St](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/HNIGZUP3DUUXVVWAOZOPRKFWVI.jpg\")
St Martin’s Michael Coleman and Paddy Leavey of Ballygunner. Photograph: James Crombie\/Inpho <\/p>\n
\u201cHe actually kicked it out of his hand,\u201d said St Martin\u2019s manager Daith\u00ed Hayes. \u201cThey are the breaks you get some days, some days you won\u2019t. <\/p>\n
\u201cSe\u00e1n made a big mistake, players make mistakes out on the field, that happens. That\u2019s human nature. But you can\u2019t blame that either for the result.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martin\u2019s still channelled momentum from that moment to end a 14-minute dry spell and reel off the final three points of the half. Their half-back line was excellent as Joe Barrett scored 0-3, while centre back Waters assisted three more. But the O\u2019Connor brothers were well marshalled as Martin\u2019s couldn\u2019t translate enough of their labour into scores. <\/p>\n
Hutchinson accounted for three of Ballygunner\u2019s four first-half points, but more of his team-mates began to fire in the second period. <\/p>\n
\u201cUnbelievable. It\u2019s going to be massive,\u201d said an emotional Ryan post-match. \u201cThey\u2019ve been in so many county finals and Munster matches, but they just haven\u2019t been at this stage as many times as what they believe they can. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re knocking at the door in an All-Ireland semi-final and they\u2019ve been in so many of them, so it\u2019s massive, it\u2019s brilliant. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd for Waterford hurling, it\u2019s great. The minors winning the All-Ireland was fantastic, so for another Waterford team to be in an All-Ireland final is terrific.\u201d<\/p>\n
BALLYGUNNER: S O\u2019Keeffe; I Kenny, T Foley, A O\u2019Neill; H Ruddle (0-1), Philip Mahony, R Power; C Sheahan, P Leavey; M Mahony (0-1), Pauric Mahony (0-7, 5f), P Hogan (0-1); K Mahony, P Fitzgerald (0-1), D Hutchinson (0-7, 1f).<\/p>\n
Subs: M Hartley (0-1) for K Mahony (37 mins), C Tobin for Fitzgerald (48), C Power for Pauric Mahony (59).<\/p>\n
ST MARTIN\u2019S: C Quirke; P Dempsey, E O\u2019Leary, C Firman; J Barrett (0-3), D Waters, D O\u2019Leary; David Codd (0-1), A Maddock; Darren Codd (0-1), J O\u2019Connor (0-2, 1f), J Firman; M Coleman, B O\u2019Connor, R O\u2019Connor (0-3f).<\/p>\n
Subs: B Maddock for Coleman (43 mins), B Stafford for Waters (44-46, blood), Stafford for J Firman, M Codd for A Maddock, P O\u2019Connor for Waters (all 55).<\/p>\n
Referee: S Stack (Dublin).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All-Ireland Senior Club Hurling Championship semi-final: Ballygunner (Waterford) 0-19 St Martin\u2019s (Wexford) 0-10 On the shortest day of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49722,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-204011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-gaa-club-hurling-championship","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}