Mulqueen exploits passion for thinking

In the Doora-Barefield dressing-room they've had seven giddy sessions since last summer, whooping, hollering good times when the coiled tension of championship hurling bursts out through the valves.

In the midst of each melee, right in there radiating energy and vibes, has been Louis Mulqueen. The club championship draws down the same words from the same sages every year. It's about parish and pride, kith and kin, fellas that grew up together and fellas that would die for each other. Blood brothers. It's a surprise then to watch the passion flow like electricity from Mulqueen and learn his link to the club is less than two years old. "Well, I live just 200 yards from the parish boundary," the coach laughs as he seeks an explanation for the dam-burst of enthusiasm he brings to his business.

When Mulqueen coached Doora-Barefield to their first county championship in 40 years last summer, that passion may just have been what carried them on the next leg of the journey. He gave his team a break for a three-night lap of honour after they beat Kilmaley, then pulled them around him again on Thursday.

"There's two ways we can go with this lads," he said. "We can leave it be or we can go all out for the provincial title. I want to go for the provincial and I want ye with me."

So they went to Dungarvan that weekend and beat Mount Sion with space to spare. Never gave a thought to doing anything else.

Mulqueen started with Doora-Barefield in January 1998. He'd been with the Clare minors the previous year, winning the All-Ireland, and Kevin Kennedy, of that year's selection panel, was a Doora-Barefield man who inveigled him into trying his hand for a few months.

He was acquainted with a good twist of the players anyway from his days managing Clare underage teams and he could see the potential that stemmed from a club team with a strong spine. He gave it a go and they got to the county final first time out of the traps, losing to Clarecastle.

"There were a few things we lacked. We scored eleven 11 points in that final and Jamesie was the only forward to score anything. Of six I picked and three we put on, he was the only one. So we worked on forward play very hard. All the time. And we worked on the physical side. We got tackle bags and stuff for over the winter so we'd be able to stand up for ourselves. Then we speeded up the way we played.

"And then we worked on getting our heads right. Against Clarecastle we gave away two soft goals and looking at us you'd have known that was it, we were gone. We needed to play more for each other, to remind ourselves of what we were doing and what we could do. So we changed the way we thought."

And hey presto, here they are.

At 35 (next month) Mulqueen has been around the block a few times already in coaching terms. He started out his playing days with Eire Og, the struggling standard-bearers of Ennis GAA. He got into PE teaching though, and wound up in Shannon in the vicinity of one Ger Loughnane.

A chest injury when he was 23 had put an end to playing, so he expanded his coaching portfolio which had begun when he was playing under-21 for Clare in 1984 and had been asked to take the physical training sessions. When he talks about getting fellas' heads right for big games and judging the gears correctly for driving teams, he says the formula came from his interest in the area and from watching the techniques of Loughnane, amongst others.

For a team making their way into new territory, Doora-Barefield have seen off some pedigree challengers in the past few months. Not just that, but Mulqueen has blinkered them against distractions. When Athenry began bellyaching about the point that never was in the wake of the semi-final last month, Mulqueen was frank and succinct in dealing with the issue.

"I told everyone who would listen that there were at least three or four things in the game which didn't go the way I thought they should have. I had to live with them. That's the game we are in. I got the lads together on the Thursday afterwards, we said just that and then I ran the legs off the poor fellas. There was nothing on their minds only an All-Ireland after that."

The Doora-Barefield job has, like most club assignments, been a balancing act. Club managers take the lot they are dealt and work their way around its weaknesses. Having three All Star hurlers was a start, but something which could have tilted the psychological scales of the team. Mulqueen played it straight from both ends. During challenge games, when the big guns were unavailable, there was no coddling players by pretending that if they played their guts out they might just keep Seanie McMahon out of the team.

"I'd virtually leave Ollie, Sean and Jamesie's positions vacant so the rest of the team could concentrate on getting on with their jobs and improving at them. When the boys came back it was all the better. Nobody was switching positions, nobody's nose was out of joint. We knew we were all in it together."

This morning they'll fly up from Shannon early, carrying the thought that this afternoon is their big shot, the hand that might never get dealt to them again. Dreamtime. Boys who grew up together, fellas that would die for each other, kith and kin, pride of place. And a coach with a genius for making them think about those things when the going gets tough.