Passion play's director-in-chief

There has rarely been a hurling year like it. It featured the rise of Waterford, an All-Ireland semi-final replayed because the referee blew it up too early, and a dramatic fall-out between Babs Keating and the Offaly team which only a couple of months later was to win the All-Ireland under the direction of a hitherto largely unknown Galway headmaster, Michael Bond.

Crowds were up, excitement was up, but in the middle of it all, the dominant personality in an extraordinary summer was Ger Loughnane, the manager of defending All-Ireland champions Clare whose performances alternated between awesome and disappointing. In the resulting tangle they had to play too many matches and finally fell to a resurgent Offaly.

But it was Loughnane's public performances, especially two extraordinary interviews on Clare FM lambasting the way his team had been treated by media, Munster Council, and authority in general, which commanded headlines.

Now, with the GAA's Games Administration Committee - somewhat reluctantly, one feels - still considering appropriate disciplinary action over the content of the radio broadcasts, Loughnane is feeling seasonally mellow.

"I was talking to Anthony Daly and we were saying: `Right. We won two All-Irelands but what year will we remember?' This year there were so many highlights on and off the field. You're not going to win an All-Ireland every year, so you can't look on a year when you don't as a disaster."

Does he feel all the controversy affected the team's progress?

"I don't think so. We faced Offaly without Brian Lohan, Colin Lynch, with Liam Doyle on one leg and with a totally greenhorn full back (Richard Woods), but we survived. In the first 40 minutes of the replay we played our best hurling ever. We lost in the end because of sheer exhaustion."

Did the public exchanges not damage relationships within the GAA in a way he regrets?

"Not at all. That's the way I am. If you confront something straight away, you don't bear grudges. What you see with me is what you get.

"I'm always suspicious of persecution complexes. The whole world is never down on you. There were inconsistencies - at least - in dealing with things this year and the victims of such inconsistencies do feel the world is against them. There was that feeling that Clare people had got totally over-sensitive to criticism.

"But the coverage the game got was fantastic. Normal programmes - nothing to do with sport - were suddenly interested. That may not be all good, but it popularises the game. Controversy when it's happening is terrible and people get cut up about it. But you look back and think: `Wasn't it mighty?' "

At the start of the campaign, it was believed that this would be his last season in charge. Before the 1997 All-Ireland he gave a compelling argument as to why the involvement of both players and managers would be limited by the demands of the modern game. Yet only recently he gave a further two-year commitment.

"Winning the second All-Ireland was the hardest thing of all. I really enjoyed this year more than any other. The players are easier to handle, they don't need as much guidance. They know how to get ready for big games.

"With or experience, I would hope we can get by much as Offaly do. After the last three or four years we won't be able to go at the same pace as '95. We will combine skill with good workrate - we can't let that down completely."

Reviewing the year, he says the day that Jimmy Cooney blew the whistle fatefully early stands out. Clare were leading by three points and probably - although of course not certainly - going to weather Offaly's comeback. Instead the match had to be refixed.

"The abiding memory was the end of the replay in Croke Park against Offaly. I've never seen such an air of unreality. Although Clare thought they had qualified, we knew the game had ended early. I was certain it was over even if a mistake had been made because I thought the referee's decision was final. It wasn't until nine or 10 that night that I realised something was afoot and that there was going to be a replay.

"Before that third match in Thurles, I thought Offaly would hammer us. I didn't think we'd have the resilience. Our style of play is that we have to play at full throttle and we had played too many matches. It's like expecting a racehorse to perform every day.

"We could have pulled the game out of the fire, but even during it I thought Offaly would beat us well. I think they would have if they hadn't switched to defence when they went five points up. Even if we'd won, I'm fairly sure Kilkenny would have beaten us in the final.

"If Paul Flynn (Waterford) had pointed that free in the Munster final, I think we would have won the All-Ireland. We wouldn't have had the extra match, particularly that extra match and all the hoopla after it. We wouldn't have lost Colin Lynch or Brian Lohan (both suspended after the replay) and I think we'd have been better prepared for Kilkenny than we ended up being for Offaly."