It's no great shock to see the Kilkenny champions arrive in the All-Ireland club final though the representatives are different this year.
The rest of Kilkenny has felt Ballyhale's boot on their throat for some time, the Shamrocks recently enjoying perhaps the most dominant of their many dominant eras.
However in 2023 we witnessed something of an uprising. Seeking a six-in-a-row, the All-Ireland champions were ambushed in the county decider by O'Loughlin Gaels, Paddy Deegan hoisting over the winner deep in injury-time.
Gaels are somewhat miscast in the role of plucky little guys. It may be only their fifth county title, but all have been won in the 21st century.
The Kilkenny city outfit have won two previous Leinster championships in 2003 and 2010 and reached an All-Ireland final in the 2010-11 campaign.
It wasn't an especially uplifting experience. They shipped a heavy beating against Micheál Donoghue's Clarinbridge side.
Former Kilkenny hurler Mark Bergin was only 21 back then. Now he's an elder statesman of the team, combining playing with his role as a national school principal no less.
Given the monsters stalking the local scene in Kilkenny, he knows when you get a rattle at the Leinster and All-Ireland series, you have to make the most of it.
"At the start of the year, your aim is certainly not to win a club All-Ireland," says Bergin. "Your aim would be to win a Kilkenny championship. And we didn't win the last one since 2016 so it's been quite a while.
"We knew that in order to win a Kilkenny championship, you're going to have to beat Ballyhale. They've been the kingpins of hurling in Kilkenny and Leinster and right throughout Ireland. And they're going to be back again next year, I've no doubt about it.
"There is an element of - if you beat Ballyhale, you've a serious chance. We were fortunate enough that we beat them with the last puck of the ball in the county final.
"I think it's the only way to beat them, the last shot of the game.
"You have to use that as an opportunity to give it everything in Leinster and the All-Ireland series because they were going for five or six in a row in Kilkenny.
"When we won Kilkenny, we enjoyed it, we celebrated and rightly so.
"A couple of days after, we met up and said, look, this is an opportunity now. We're representing Kilkenny, you look back at how good Ballyhale were in the Leinster and All-Ireland series. We want to try and give it a go."
Deegan's county final performance befitted his stature as one of Kilkenny's finest players of the current - comparatively lean - era.
Having made his Kilkenny senior debut in 2017, a relatively unfortunate moment at which to appear [shades of Maurice Fitzgerald arriving into the Kerry set-up in 1988], Deegan has emerged as a commanding and often inspirational figure at wing-back.
Bergin, however, discloses that Deegan wasn't earmarked for great things as a teenager and was something of a late developer.
"One thing about Paddy when he was coming up. He wasn't necessarily the best player on the club team underage. But he just loved hurling. He was the waterboy in 2011 when we reached the All-Ireland senior final. He would have been a huge part of it.
"He wasn't part of successful underage teams in O'Loughlin's. Two years before him, there was an age-group that were very, very good. They won the Féile at Under-14 and he missed the cut. But he was there, doing waterboy for them as well.
"When he got to around minor stage, he started to develop himself physically. He's one of Kilkenny's best players over the last number of years.
"But in terms of him growing up, and becoming the star that he is now, you probably wouldn't have said it at the time.
"But you would say he had the right attitude. He had a huge workrate and huge dedication. He's unreal, he's non-stop working. He's constantly with a hurl in his hand.
"It's great to see him winning Kilkenny championships, think that's his second medal, winning his first Leinster club. He's lost three All-Ireland senior finals with Kilkenny at this stage. So, it was just nice to see him getting the rewards with the club."
The Kilkenny decider wasn't to be the last of their one-point wins. They pipped a devastated Na Fianna by the minimum in a nerve-shredding provincial final in Croke Park. And then edged out Cushendall by a solitary point in Páirc Tailteann. Masters of the narrow victory.
Bergin, now 33, is on free-taking duty and has scored heavily, racking up 0-10 in the county final [0-03 from play], 0-11 against Na Fianna [0-02 from play] and 0-09 in the dogfight with the Antrim champs [0-04 from play].
He now holds down a job more associated with a long-in-the-tooth inter-county manager than a still active player - "I'm school principal in Church Hill National School in Cuffesgrange. It's 10 minutes outside Kilkenny City. Paul Murphy would have been a former pupil."
Fortunately, his illustrious and recently retired club gaffer understands the demands. Brian Hogan, who could justly be called a modern Kilkenny great, won the county title at his first go at senior management this season.
"He's very understanding. It wasn't so long ago that Hogie was playing. He understands that the older you get, little niggles start creeping in. And obviously family life as well," says Bergin.
"He's extremely calm. He gives over a lot of responsibility to the players. I think he was fortunate to be guided and managed by probably the greatest manager in hurling in Brian Cody.
"You can see some similarities. Michael Dempsey and Martin Fogarty were key coaches and selectors in Kilkenny and Brian has surrounded himself with key coaches too. Brian has surrounded himself with good people too - Nigel Skehan, Alan O'Brien, Alan Geoghegan. They're all top class coaches, so he gives over that responsibility to them too.
"When I heard that Brian was going to be our manager at the beginning of 2023, immediately you think of respect.
"He's nice and calm and relaxed. He wants us to enjoy the next few days but remind us that we have a duty and that's to represent the club to the best of our ability on Sunday."
