Fennelly hails "fantastic achievement"
March 18, 2010
Ballyhale manager Michael Fennelly
The Ballyhale manager said after yesterday's 1-19 to 0-17 victory over three-in-a-row chasing Portumna: "Five All-Ireland club titles, for a small rural parish, is an amazing achievement.
"We are only drawing from five, six or seven families. But there is a great hurling tradition down there and we hope to keep it going. They want to win. They're mad for hurling."
Fennelly dismissed suggestions that Ballyhale's crushing defeat by Portumna in last year's All-Ireland semi-final had been a big motivating factor for them.
"The boys were very hurt. Afterwards, you read everything, but things went wrong for them. They weren't tuned in - 50-50 balls didn't go their way, and passes were going astray. They worked on that. We showed them the DVD last Sunday and that stuck in their minds," he explained.
"If we made those mistakes again, we'd have been blown out of it again. Instead, they counteracted everything. The backs played wonderful, and there were doubts about that, but they proved everybody wrong today. Blocking and hooking was the biggest theme of the game.
"Because when you do that to a team they get frustrated, wonder what they have to do to get fellas off their backs. So it was a whole team performance. It couldn't have been a better performance and that is why they are All-Ireland club champions." Tweet
