All-Ireland prize the final stepping stone for Ballygunner

Three years on from facing Ballyhale Shamrocks at the All-Ireland semi-final stage, Stephen O'Keeffe and Ballygunner are relishing the opportunity to face the Kilkenny champions again, this time with the All-Ireland crown itself at stake.

Saturday at Croke Park will see the return of the biggest day in club hurling after last year's cancellation of the competition because of Covid-19. For Ballygunner, it's a first ever appearance in the decider, a chance to make history and so deny Ballyhale's quest for an unprecedented hat-trick of titles.

O'Keeffe, the netminder for the Déise and Munster champions, is looking forward to having another crack at Shamrocks and really putting it up to them after the five-point loss in 2019,

Speaking to the media ahead of this year's AIB club decider, O'Keeffe said: "I think that game in 2019 had one or two turning points with about 10 or 12 minutes to go. It essentially came down to the fact that we had a goal chance and we didn't get it and they had a goal chance and they took it.

"Up until that point I felt it was a very nip and tuck game. The conditions were very poor so when they did get a goal, we had to go chasing a goal ourselves because it just wasn't enough to tack on a few points and bring it back.

"It was quite low-scoring at the time. They managed to tack on one or two more points themselves, to make it a four, five-point game in the end.

"It certainly wasn't a case of being ahead and then getting white-line fever and any regrets, there was no regrets at all from the game. It was just a sense of 'we can compete at this level' and we were mad to get back into the All-Ireland series again and give it another shot."

Now they have that opportunity. Of course there was a time when winning