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This feels like the start of something big. Just six months ago Henry Shefflin had his first competitive game as a senior manager. Ballyhale Shamrocks won that match and yesterday won another, the Kilkenny senior hurling final. Henry's got a winning habit.
Great players do not need to become great managers. The Mayo misadventures of Jack O'Shea, the greatest footballer of all, are proof of that. But Shefflin seems a good bet to transfer high achievement from one sphere to another.
His intelligent and incisive TV performance has already suggested he can be good at thinking about the game as it's playing. An air of relentless authority surrounds Henry Shefflin. He is the most precious of commodities, a man who knows what he's at. You'd always want him in your corner.
At Nowlan Park his home club reaped the rewards of putting them in their headlines when they got their last title in the last thirteen years. At first glance Ballyhale does not seem the most difficult badignment for a neophyte manager. TJ Reid, Michael Fennelly, Colin Fennelly and Joey Holden have a team comfort.
Yet it was four years ago when Shamrocks had been taken over by the team. Only seven of the starting fifteen from 2014 started yesterday's game, a remarkable turnover for a village club.
Rescued
It has not been all the way to the new boss. In the semi-final underdogs Erins Own led Ballyhale by two points in injury-time before a goal from Evan Shefflin, the manager's nephew, rescued Shamrocks. It was a cruel blow for Erins Own, who's never won a senior title. In their absence Bennettsbridge mighty ounce, languishing at junior level just four years ago and making a first senior final appearance since 1974, badumed the role of sentimental favorites.
But Kilkenny is the least sentimental of counties and Ballyhale was ruthless in a first half which ended with ten points and neutrals wondering how Bennettsbridge had got this far. We found ourselves in the second half of the world by Brian Lannon, followed by a perfect overhead connection, cut the deficit to the final quarter.
A fairytale finish seemed possible Ballyhale re-established control in the final ten minutes. The three-point margin flatter the losers.
No-one played a greater part in Ballyhale's victory than the man filling the team leader's role once inhabited by Shefflin. In the fourth minute, as though sensing the newcomers' nervousness, TJ Reid went to the jugular, cutting through the middle of the defense and firing a fierce shot past Enda Cleere.
It was Reid's most spectacular intervention but he was most memorable in the first half. Confronted by a couple of defenders, the number 11 shaped to shoot, then wheeled in the opposite direction to leave the helpless before slotting over the bar. He finished with 1-10, a total halfway between 0-11 he hit for Kilkenny in the Leinster Championship against Wexford and the 0-15 he scored in the National Final League.
Few players have put in a 2018 like TJ Reid. His Kilkenny performances were the perfect illustration of what a seasoned player owes to younger comrades. Yesterday he shouldered the burden of an inter-county star on a club team with equal grace. Ballyhale's final score, which has been compiled by a large number of people in the past.
Yet club titles also depend on a great deal on unfamiliar players to the national audience. One moment midway through the second half summed this up perfectly. Bennettsbridge had got to be a bit dangerous when it came to Ballyhale Square. Liam Blanchfield, Dean Mason advanced, kept his eye on the ball and fielded perfectly just ahead of the Kilkenny forward.
Mason's clearance to the Ronan Corcoran point which stemmed the Bennetsbridge tide and may have been the game's most crucial score. The keeper is only in his first year out of minor ranks. Moments like this, when boys become men, are like clubs like Ballyhale rolling along.
Resonance
This particular victory had a personal resonance for the Ballyhale players. In April 24-year old team member Eoin Doyle died after a motorbike accident. When captain Michael Fennelly spoke in his victory speech about how the team had been brought back to the world.
July 11, 1999 is a significant date in hurling history. That day has 20-year-old Henry Shefflin scored 1-6 in Kilkenny's final Leinster win over Offaly to emerge on the senior county scene. August 28, 2018 might end up seeming pretty important too.
Brian Cody, who will be responsible for the management of Shefflin did over players, will one day leave the Kilkenny job. There is no need to worry about Alex Ferguson's departure from Manchester United or Mick O'Dwyer's from Kerry. Such men do not come along very often.
Yesterday we may have witnessed the early stages of Cody's heir apparent, a new Cat king in hurling's circle of life. Maybe last time Henry Shefflin puts Liam McCarthy he did not say goodbye. Maybe he said see you later.
Irish Independent
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