Stephen O’Keeffe says believes fewer inter-county players will play beyond their early 30s given the commitments involved.

At the age of 29, O’Keeffe stepped away from the Waterford panel following the 2020 All-Ireland final defeat to Limerick and confirmed his retirement from the inter-county game following overtures from Deise boss Davy Fitzgerald last year.

Ballygunner clubmate, Pauric Mahony, who hit 0-11 in their win over Na Piarsaigh on Sunday, announced his retirement from county hurling at the start of year at just 30. Mahony’s brother, Philip, went three years before that when he was just short of his 29th birthday.

Read MoreJury sworn in as All-Ireland winning hurler Kyle Hayes to stand trial over alleged nightclub assault

It allows them all to divert more focus on the club at a time when they are serial All-Ireland contenders.

“But life kind of moves on as well,” O’Keeffe explained. “You try and build a career for yourself, you have a young family at home as well.

“There are only 24 hours in the day but the amount of stuff you have to fit into that 24 hours seems to go up and up. I think you're seeing it more and more now.

“The majority of county players aren't going too far past 31, 32 these days. I think it's a lifestyle thing at the moment. I'm not sure if I see that changing."

With the level that Ballygunner have reached in recent years, not playing for Waterford hasn’t exactly left a competitive void in O’Keeffe’s life.

When Ballygunner faced Blackrock in the 2001 Munster club final, the Cork champions were bidding for a record-extending sixth title.

But Ballygunner got over them that day and, after a 17-year wait for a second title, they’re now poised to draw level with them at the top of the roll of honour.

From 2005-17, Ballygunner won a further seven county titles but couldn’t progress beyond that, with Na Piarsaigh seeing them off in 2011, ‘15 and ‘17.

But the tables finally turned in 2018 as Ballgunner scored a six-point victory over them in Thurles to finally bridge the gap to 2001.

They lost narrowly to Borris-Ileigh in the following year’s final but have won the last two and are bidding for their fifth in all against Clonlara the weekend after next. Should they succeed, it would be the first ever Munster three-in-a-row.

They’re clear favourites to win a second All-Ireland in three years. Getting past Na Piarsaigh five years ago opened all sorts of possibilities for them and they’ve now beaten them twice since, including Sunday’s four-point win.

“They bet us three times in-a-row before we finally got over them the fourth time so massive respect for this club,” said O’Keeffe.

“The battles we’ve had are incredible. We’ve played each other possibly six times in 11/12 years in Munster so obviously there’s a big rivalry there at the moment.”

He added: “We were just dreaming of getting over the line for one Munster Championship. We tried to climb that mountain a lot of times and got knocked back often in a Munster final, which just makes it very, very hard to get back up and go again.

“Once we finally did get over the line, there was a bit more freedom and I think we got a bit more belief in ourselves that we can do it. We did it before so you try and replicate that again.

“But there was a lot of heartbreak definitely in the build-up trying to get over Munster for the first time."

And there was enough uncertainty about Sunday’s win to keep them honest. Leading by eight points with five minutes of normal time remaining, a late reflex save by O’Keeffe from David Dempsey helped to prevent extra time.

“Any time there’s two or three balls lobbed in on top of the square you know anything can happen. They got one goal and nearly got a second so we definitely needed to be a bit better at finishing it out. We kind of left it up to a bit of luck with those balls dropping in on top of the square, definitely.

“In fairness, everyone was doing their best to put a tackle in, get a leg in, get a hurley in, sometimes it can be hard to see and the shot, there wasn’t a lot of power in it because of the work the backs were doing so I was able to keep it out thankfully.”

Get the latest sports headlines straight to your inbox by signing up for free email alerts.