Fourmilewater chasing glory to add to the history book

Championship final day is not a rare thing in Ballymacarbry, it's the norm really.

When Comeragh Rangers won the 2024 Waterford Ladies SFC final, it ended the greatest winning run in Gaelic Games history with Ballymacarbry winning 42 titles in a row before that.

The Nire too have brought senior football titles back to the village, 11 in all since 1993 with eight final losses bringing the appearance record to over 20 in that spell.

But hurling? Hurling has had to play second fiddle to who have given their life to the Nire-Fourmilewater GAA and Ballymacarbry LGFA club on the Waterford-Tipperary border.

Until now that is, because in its centenary year, Fourmile have reached the Waterford SHC final for the first time in their history with Ballygunner, the heaviest of heavyweights, awaiting in Dungarvan this afternoon.

If you want evidence to back that claim up then look no further than the draw for the championship with Ballygunner having an A and B team in the senior pots. The B team, as it happens, managed 3-11 against Fourmilewater in the group stage but were still well short at the final whistle.

Here Fourmilewater hurling is though and here it stands in what has been one of the busiest weeks ever around the club.

Yesterday GAA President Jarlath Burns unveiled a plaque as the club celebrated 100 years in existence.

On Tuesday, bulldozers will arrive at Mill Field to start prep work on laying a new surface on the club pitch.

Last week the club’s hurlers won the Waterford Junior B title, while on Wednesday the Fourmilewater minors just lost out to Clonlea in the Division 2 final.

This is all music to the ears of club historian, and former Waterford manager, Michael Ryan, who is months away from releasing an updated club history book.

The previous edition ran up to 1988 and with a launch due at Christmas, Ryan is hoping to have to make a significant addition if Sunday goes to plan.

"It will be the full 100 years now," Ryan, who acted as emcee for Burns’ visit this weekend, told RTÉ Sport.

"We're reincorporating the original book and continuing on with the rest of the story from 1988.

"Hopefully we’ll have something to add to it this weekend. There’s a great atmosphere around the place. I wouldn’t say we’re getting carried away with it but we’re enjoying it because it’s historic and unique.

"The club started in 1926, we reached our first junior final in 1928. We lost that (to Erin’s Own).

"We didn’t win our first adult title until 1955 when we won Junior (against Ballyduff Lowe) and we won another in '63 (against De La Salle – a club Ryan would guide to Waterford and Munster senior titles in 2010).

"After that we were very much middle of the road, maybe the bottom half of the road.

"We came up to intermediate in the late ‘60s and won our first Intermediate title in ‘79 (against St Mary’s) won another in ‘89 (against Erin’s Own).

"We stayed in senior for ten years, got relegated in 1999 and back up in 2001 – so it’s 25 years of steady progress ever since."

Former Waterford Shane Walsh was one of the catalysts for that quarter of a century of unbroken senior hurling.

His first season as a teenager coincided with the 2001 Intermediate final win over a Colm Bonnar-led Dunhill, having lined out with the Nire footballers the year before.

It was Walsh’s stunning 20th-minute goal that sparked a fightback as Fourmilewater, captained by his older brother Ger, returned to senior level – and you’ll find them there ever since.

"I'm delighted that they finally broke that semi-final barrier there to get into a county final," Walsh said.

"The club has never been in a senior county final, I've never played in a senior county final.

"Some years we've got to county semi-finals, others year we were fighting relegation there, so that's kind of been the story of my career.

"But I'm delighted with this group of players there, they're a great group. I would have played with a lot of them there, but a lot of them are young there as well and they're just after breaking onto the scene there, a few of my nephews included."

Growing up, those nephews would have watched Walsh, older brothers Ger, Pat and Martin, and other players put their shoulder to the wheel trying to get over the semi-final hurdle - and no doubt they would have been in Lemybrien last weekend as Shane came off the bench to nab a couple of points in the victorious Junior B final against Ballygunner.

Now it’s a new breed that the young supporters are looking up to, and Walsh is hoping it inspires another quarter-century of progress for the club.

"That's what it's all about, the young players getting to see that senior team go around in the parade before the game and getting to see them playing in a county final.

"It gives them the ambition there and the drive there to play for the next few years, and they're the future. That minor team is the future of Fourmilewater.

"You'd hope the seniors being in the county final this weekend will drive them on to play for the foreseeable future."

Ryan too knows all about inspiration and the success it can lead to.

His CV is simply spectacular and between Ballymacarbry, Waterford, Dublin or Laois, he has managed or coached ladies teams to over an astonishing 30 All-Ireland senior titles.

He has analysed hundreds of teams throughout his career, and he’s rarely witnessed such a machine as current All-Ireland champions Ballygunner.

"They're the All-Ireland champions and they coasted through last year’s championship. I don't know if they even got a good game in the whole thing.

"From the Waterford Championship to Munster, the All-Ireland series, they were convincing winners all the way.

"A really good, top-class team capable of blitzing you if you stand back and let them play.

"We know the strength of the challenge but we also think we have a good team ourselves. We have a nice blend of youth and experience and we've been performing very well.

"We are very fit and we were really looking forward to it and we're going to enjoy it no matter what."

The sense of occasion around the club right now is palpable.

One special visitor was guaranteed to visit Ballymacarbry this weekend in the form of GAA President Burns. Maybe another will show up later this evening, the News & Star Cup, and wouldn’t the timing just be perfect with that club history book on the way?

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