Gort manager Mattie Murphy has an old score to settle with Ballyhale Shamrocks.

The former Galway minor and senior manager was on the Gort team that lost out to the Kilkenny kinpins in the All-Ireland final of 1984.

"That was the year they decided to play it over a weekend in Navan," Murphy recalled speaking to The Irish Times.

"We played Midleton, the Cork champions, on Saturday and Ballyhale the next day. They'd beaten the Ulster champions."

The replay took place seven weeks later and Shamrocks claimed the title on a scoreline of 1-10 to 0-7.

"It was our first final but they'd won the All-Ireland a couple of years before. We had Sylvie Linnane and Pearse Piggott and had won the county in 1981 but we had to go to Kilkenny then to play James Stephens."

As far as the current Gort crop are concerned, Murphy believes it's a case of the bigger the opposition are, the harder they fall.

"I actually think that Gort, if they're playing an ordinary team, don't really rise to the occasion; you rarely see them beating a team out of sight but if we're up against a very good side we'll rise to the challenge. Portumna and Clarinbridge, who Gort beat in the recent county finals, were both All-Ireland champions at the time."

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