It's 50 years this month since Ballyhale Shamrocks was founded, and there’s never been a more dramatic moment in that half century than TJ Reid’s late, late intervention.
It paves the way for the club to become the first to win three All-Irelands in-a-row in their golden jubilee year against Ballygunner next month, as well as further enshrining Reid’s legend.
Having slotted a penalty minutes earlier to bring his side level, two Conor Cooney frees meant that it was a goal or bust as Reid stood over a free from the 20-metre line but to the right of the posts, the angle increasing the difficulty considerably and pushing the distance out to some 23 metres, with a thicket of St Thomas’s defenders guarding the line to boot.
It was a low-percentage chance for any hurler but still, with Reid, the probability of it finding the net was higher than it would be with anyone else. He lifted the net and Thomas’s didn’t have time to summon a response.
"I knew I had the best man standing over it,” said Ballyhale manager James O’Connor. “If he would see a gap there, and there was a crowd of players inside there. You are talking about inches.
“In fairness I knew it was the right man and I knew it was the last puck. It was always going to take a second goal to win this. I had the right man standing over the ball.”
It was a crushing defeat for St Thomas’s, who were clearly the better side for the majority of the game and played like a team that was smarting from the humiliating 17-point defeat inflicted on them by the same opposition in the 2019 All-Ireland final.
They made a fast start and withstood a Ballyhale rally midway through the first half to lead 0-13 to 0-11 at the break, with Eanna Burke having been denied a goal by Dean Mason in the 20th minute.
The scoring rate dropped in the second half and Ballyhale particularly struggled up front as Thomas’s pulled four points clear on three occasions.
With time running out, a run from Darragh Corcoran opened the Thomas’s defence and Colin Fennelly fashioned a penalty after John Headd dragged him down, with Reid making no mistake to draw the sides level in the 57th minute.
Cooney slotted two frees, however, the second from his own 45, to bring his tally to 0-11 and seemingly see his side home, though the two-point margin meant that a goal was essential to Ballyhale’s cause, and no better team to fashion one in those circumstances.
O’Connor added: “I never say it’s gone when you’re with Ballyhale because they’ve done this in semi-finals when they seem dead and buried - go back to the Leinster semi-final and it was the exact same, the last 10 seconds and today was no different.
“I knew there was a massive challenge here, we held in there not playing well at times, and there’s no point saying otherwise, but we showed our character at the end of the game, never losing our cool, never panicking.”
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