If Sunday’s All-Ireland Club Senior Hurling Championship final comes down to hunger alone, then surely Dunloy’s desire to lift the Tommy Moore Cup will be much greater than that of Ballyhale.
The Kilkenny side are the most successful club team in the history of the competition with eight All-Ireland titles. They’ve contested the last three finals, winning two and were only narrowly denied a hat-trick by a brilliant goal by Ballygunner’s Harry Ruddle in a thrilling decider last February.
In stark contrast, Dunloy have been bridesmaids in four All-Ireland finals and are seeking their first title.
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Ryan Elliott’s family tree is littered with players who have experience of playing on the biggest day in the club calendar, including his father Shane who was in nets for the 1995 and 1996 losses to Birr and Sixmilebridge respectively.
However, the current crop of Dunloy hurlers aren’t burdened by the hurt of past defeats and are determined to forge their own history.
Speaking at Dunloy’s press night ahead of Sunday’s final, Elliott said: “We haven’t really talked about those All-Ireland finals.
“We obviously would have talked about those games growing up, but we haven’t reflected on that ahead of this final.
“It’s always special to play in Croke Park, but at the end of the day it’s another pitch, the same size as any other pitch.
"A few of the boys got their first game in it the last day which was good and got that experience but it’s just another pitch.”
Their last performance was a remarkable 1-14 to 0-13 victory over St Thomas’ of Galway in the All-Ireland semi-final at Croke Park last month.
Keelan Molloy’s superb solo goal capped a stunning performance from Gregory O’Kane’s men as they shocked the five-in-a-row Galway champions.
Despite winning by four points, Dunloy know they can improve even further after squandering a host of chances in their semi-final victory with Conal Cunning also missing a first half penalty.
“After the Slaughtneil match it was as if we grew two foot taller and the confidence we got from that,” said Elliott.
“Going into the St Thomas’ match, the bookies had us at a big, big price, 4/1 or 9/2, but we were very confident going into that match that we were going to win it. The final is going to be a different test but we have plenty of confidence.
“We’ve watched it back a number of times and we saw areas where we weren’t too good at and areas where we were.
“But we’ve done a lot of work since then. We hit a lot of wides that day, I think it was maybe 16? So we’re working on that too.”
In the aftermath of their win in the semi-final, there was the perception that Dunloy had caught St Thomas’ on a bad day.
They probably did, but the Antrim champions certainly weren’t at their very best either and Elliott feels Ulster hurling teams have to work much harder to gain respect.
“I think that it's just the northern teams don’t get the respect - we go out try to earn the respect, demand the respect,” added the Dunloy goalkeeper.
“It’s one of those things. You obviously want as much respect as you can, but it’s not that the teams we’re playing aren’t giving us the respect – it’s maybe the media down South.
“You need to earn the respect as well and not many (Ulster) teams have got to the All-Ireland final. Loughgiel, Cushendall and ourselves and Rossa in ’89. Maybe they have a right to say that because not many have got to All-Ireland finals.”
“Maybe they just haven’t seen us a lot and they’re maybe judging us on the St Thomas’s match.”
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