Richie Reid cut a relieved figure after Ballyhale Shamrocks survived a major scare from Slaughtneil to reach their second successive All-Ireland club SHC final.

The hot favourites only made certain of victory when Colin Fennelly scored his second goal with virtually the last puck of the game as the Ulster champions' heroic performance fell just short. 

"It was the toughest game we had all year," Ballyhale wing back Reid admitted to RTÉ.

"They threw absolutely everything at us. Lucky enough, we came out at the end of it with a win. They dropped back a lot and were sweeping. We knew we had to get better ball into the forwards. In the second half, we started doing that. The goals helped us. 

"But they kept coming at us and coming at us. They never stopped and thankfully at the end we got the result we wanted." 

Reid added: "We knew coming up they were going to throw everything at us. They're a physical team, they hit us very hard. We had to live with it and try and make sure our hurling got us over the line. At the end of the day, it did."

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