Tradition and tragedy driving Ballyhale Shamrocks to new heights

Top of the All-Ireland senior club hurling title honour roll with eight. Only denied a historic three-in-a-row by a late Ballygunner goal earlier this year.

Five-in-a-row Kilkenny champions and aiming for four in a row in Leinster, in all likelihood five if Covid hadn't intervened. Some of the brightest stars in the game like TJ Reid and Adrian Mullen.

Ballyhale Shamrocks are a 'super club' of a different kind, one that has massively over-achieved given their playing group of less than 180 members.

That astonishing record of success makes them hot favourites to win a 13th Leinster decider against Dubln's first time-finalists Kilmacud Crokes on Sunday, despite their opponents' 2,900 players across both codes.

"It's a small place and there's nothing here but a hurling pitch," Shamrocks and Kilkenny forward Eoin Cody tells RTÉ Sport.

"It's something that's been handed down through generations. When you're here in Ballyhale all you do is go over to the hurling pitch and hurl.

"It was Ballyhale’s 50th anniversary this year, if you go back to the team that hurled the first game I would imagine you’d see Holdens, Shefflins, Codys, Corcorans, Reids. At one stage, I think there were seven Fennelly brothers there.

"We're a heap of families. The team is full of brothers, cousins. The Mullens and Fennellys are cousins. Myself and Evan [Shefflin] are cousins. The Corcorans are cousins, the Butlers. We’re a team and a tight-knit family.

"That’s the tradition put down through generation to generation. We learn from TJ [Reid], TJ learned from Henry [Shefflin, Cody's uncle]. Henry from the Fennellys. Hopefully we can pass it on to the next group of lads, the likes of Niall Shortall and Killian Corcoran, who made the step up to senior this year.

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