Jim Greene, centre, pictured turning the first sod on the now completed Community Playground located on the grounds of Mount Sion GAA club in Waterford.
By John Harrington
Jim Greene’s service to Mount Sion GAA club has been considerable.
He won his first county championship medal as a player in 1969, and when he won his eight alongside his son Brian in 1988 he was also the team manager.
He’d go on to win five more county championships as well as a Munster Championship as team manager, and he’s still giving all he can to the cause, now as a senior team selector under current manager John Meaney.
On Sunday, Mount Sion will contest their first County SHC Final in eight years and you have to go back to 2006 since they last won one.
They’ve waited a while for this moment, but that makes the it all the sweeter for everyone involved.
“Absolutely, this is why we live,” Greene told GAA.ie “This is the thing we want. It's the place to be,isn't it? You can't win it if you're not in it.
“With the history of our club, eight years is a very long time to be out of a final. And 16 without winning one. That's a lifetime, an eternity, for us.
“But we feel we're in a good place at this time. Our underage is doing well. We're doing reasonably well all through the club at the minute and this will complement all that as well.
“It's pretty exciting at the minute in the club, we're happy out. This championship after 16 years is a very, very important championship. If we won it this year it would go down as one of our great championships."
Greene is a proper club-person in the sense that he realises it’s about more than just winning matches on the pitch.
Jim Greene pictured in 2004 when Mount Sion were narrowly beaten in the AIB Munster Club SHC Final by Toomevara.
He’s experienced and savoured plenty of that too, but he keenly appreciates that a GAA club is a community hub as much as a sporting outlet, and there’s a symbiotic relationship between both.
He was the driving force behind the recent building of a community playground on the club’s grounds, and is proud of the positive role Mount Sion play in their local community.
“We're an inner-city club,” says Greene. “We're not the wealthiest area in Waterford. We're a real working class area and we've always been a working class club.
“That's been a benefit at times because when you get a fella coming through he's usually made of good stuff and we've benefited from that.
“With the set-up that we have up above, including the play-ground, we're really integrated into the community and it's great. We're very pleased with the whole club at the minute. The whole club is in a good place and we're happy with that.”
For a club that still comfortably tops the roll of honour in Waterford, not winning a county SHC title for 16 years counts as a famine for club-members like Greene who were fortunate to experience so many glory days.
Their opponents on Sunday, Ballygunner, have won the last eight titles in a row thanks to a incredibly talented generation of players in the club.
Ballygunner celebrate with the Tommy Moore cup after beating Ballyhale Shamrocks in the AIB All-Ireland Club SHC Final.
Is Mount Sion’s relative lack of success during that period simply down to how good Ballygunner have been, or were they perhaps guilty of taking their eye of the ball in some way?
“Every club has its moments,” says Greene. “There's clubs intermediate in Waterford today that were strong clubs in my time. And vice versa, there are strong senior teams now that were intermediate previously. Everyone has their spin.
“I mean, we're a very lucky club, we were never out of the senior. That's not common, really. That's unusual if you go through all the teams. You have your ups and downs and we hit a low period.
“It all goes back to the underage. That's where it comes from. If the conveyor belt is not going well then the end result is not good. We struggled underage for a little while and then we suffered because of that. Now we're very active and very progressive underage and it's coming out in the wash.”
This year’s Final appearance is a reward for the trust the club has shown in team manager John Meaney.
They lost three semi-finals in row from 2019 to 2021, but all were close matches including last year’s two-point defeat to eventual county, provincial, and All-Ireland champions Ballygunner.
Greene never had any doubt that Meaney was the man to bring the club forward.
“Absolutely, and I'm delighted for John,” he says. “He's come up all the way. As a player he has championship medals himself and he was part of backroom teams for the last 10 or 12 years starting underage and coming up through minor and on into senior.
“He had a plan and it's still in operation. We're still on target that we win a championship in his time. It might be this year, we don't know, it might be next year. It was nearly last year.
“We're getting closer, and that's very heartening.”
Austin Gleeson of Mount Sion watches a shot during the Waterford Senior Hurling Club Championship Quarter-Final match between Mount Sion and Lismore at Fraher Field in Dungarvan, Waterford.
If Mount Sion are to pull off a shock on Sunday, they’ll probably need their talismanic captain, Austin Gleeson, to hit the high notes.
He’s been doing that all season for them, and Greene is happy to laud a player he believes is one of the best of his generation.
“It's hard to judge players against players because the game has evolved so much,” he says. “It's a different type of game now totally than when I played 30 or 40 years ago or whatever.
“But in the present day game with the way it's played, he's as good as anything really. He has all the skills in fairness to the man, and I'm glad he's ours. I'd hate to be playing against him.
“He's a great man, he's captain, and he's a great leader. His leadership this year has been phenomenal. He's a very, very skilful player but he's also just a great chap. There's no airs about him around the club or anything. He just does the best he can every day.
“He wants every ball in fairness to him. He just loves the ball. And he uses it well, he's not selfish with it. And when he hits it, he's fairly accurate! He's a great player.”
Despite Gleeson’s prodigious form, Mount Sion are still underdogs going into this match for a very good reason.
All-Ireland champions Ballygunner don’t look like they’ve lost any of their appetite for further success as they bid for a ninth Waterford SHC title in a row, so the challenge faced by Mount Sion is considerable.
It’s one they’ll relish though, because even though they haven’t been here for a while there’s so much tradition in the club they’ll always back themselves.
“We have never feared anybody,” says Greene. “That's not the way we play the game. They are a great team, they're All-Ireland champions. They're the best team in the country, not just in Waterford.
“To beat them is a big ask and it would be a phenomenal achievement. But we will believe in ourselves. We always believe in ourselves and that won't change no matter who we're playing. Our belief in ourselves is constant. We believe in our ability always and we we believe we can produce a performance.
“And if we can get a performance this weekend and we win, then well and good. But if we get a performance and lose, then no fault, you can only be as good as you are.
“Please God we'll be as good as we are on Sunday and it'll be enough.”
