On Sunday, Ballyea make their first appearance in a Clare SHC Final since 2003, it will also mark the first time that former County hurler Fergal Hegarty has a part to play in a senior club final.
By Jamesy Mc Conigley
Fergal Hegarty wasn’t lucky enough to have played in a Canon Hamilton decider but now he has the opportunity to help Ballyea achieve a goal he never could as a player. Realistically knowing that they are greenhorns to Clare senior county finals, Hegarty is optimistic about their chances.
“For Ballyea, senior county finals haven’t come around to often, It’s very exciting, in this case it’s Ballyea’s second one, I’m happy to help the lads fulfil their dreams and hopefully Sunday we’ll give a good account of ourselves and be right there with 10 minutes to go, that’s the aim”.
Hegarty who has already won an U21 Championship as coach with his native club Inagh-Kilnamona earlier this year now wants to complete the feat with the Ballyea seniors. “I enjoyed the U21 and it was great preparation for getting involved with Ballyea at senior level”.
He compares this weekends county final to an All-Ireland for the Ballyea players. Having only worked eight months with the club, this year has turned out to have been a job well done but not yet finished.“There’s a lot of top class players here, It’s very exciting to work with these guys and we’ve shown improvement from the start of the years which is very pleasing”.
The Kilnamona man like the rest of the Ballyea outfit praises one man in particular for his efforts and association with the club,“You’ll have to go a long way to find more of a gentleman than Robbie Hogan. He’s a great manager, he has respect of all the players, the amount of work he does for them not just on the training ground but away from the pitch it’s phenomenal but I’ve certainly enjoyed working with him”
Despite being substituted with an injury in their semi-final win, Tony Kelly is back to full fitness to the delight of the all the Black and Amber supporters. “Thankfully he’s recovered from that, he’s trained well since, you don’t need to be Einstein to know that Tony is a huge player for us”
“The things people mightn’t see about Tony is his influence around the dressing room.” He added “you come here to Ballyea training and he’s on the pitch since 5pm, he’s a good guy, very popular, he’s a first class hurler but a first class guy too”
Last year’s beaten Finalist stand in Ballyea’s way of lifting their first Senior Title on the competition’s 130 year-old birthday. The two-time All-Ireland winner with Clare in 1995 and 97 knows Clonlara will be stiff opposition on Sunday “They’re the team that everyone has said could have won the title in the last couple of years, they probably won it before their time in 2008 they were very young and their a lot of those guys still around, huge quality and experience, were under no illusions we’ll have to play at the best of our ability.”
Whether Ballyea or Clonlara triumph on Sunday, one things for certain, Hamilton will be residing at a new address in 2016.