Stack a winner and a loser before he even starts

Some managers leave the sidelines and sit in the stands for championship showdowns to better assess the play unfolding on the field below. Others sit there purely out of preference.

Seán Stack hasn’t made up his mind yet where to sit for Sunday’s AIB Munster club hurling final against his old club.

It’s one of those perfect conflicts of interest, particularly galling for someone of Stack’s background: one of the most respected and decorated players with Clare champions Sixmilebridge, he is now plotting their downfall on Sunday as manager of Limerick champions Na Piarsaigh.

Clearly some emotions will have to be set aside, although as far as the Na Piarsiagh players are concerned, it doesn't matter where Stack is sitting on Sunday.

Confident
Shane Dowling, their midfielder and free-taker, is confident the only thing that matters for Stack on Sunday is doing his best for Na Piarsaigh.

“He’s said nothing about it yet, or where he might be sitting,” says Dowling. “It’s just been heads down and train us hard.”

Indeed Stack has been in this position before: in 1993, while still playing with Sixmilebridge, he faced Tipperary champions Toomevara in the Munster championship – the club he also happened to be coaching at the time.

“Yeah, that was a brilliant story,” adds Dowling. “It’s not often you’d see the manager still playing and training another team. Whatever about Sunday, that must have been 10 times worse, so he’s a bit used to it, anyway.”

Against that backdrop there is a real seriousness about Sunday’s game, the Limerick-Clare rivalry only partly captured by Stack’s dual conflicts.

Na Piarsaigh won this Munster club title as recently as 2011; Sixmilebridge haven’t won it since 2000.

And while Limerick made a breakthrough this summer in winning a first Munster championship since 1996, Clare ended their 16-year wait for an All-Ireland, also comfortably beating Limerick in the semi-final.

When Dowling is asked about this he draws a long breath: “Well you have to respect Clare. Genuinely, you do. You would be foolish otherwise. We beat them in 2012, so they have obviously progressed a lot.

“But it’s hard to do, win an All-Ireland, let’s be honest. We haven’t done it since 1973. They hadn’t done it since 1997. Hard work pays off, and Clare are the prime example of that.”

Dowling, however, might have reason to regret Limerick’s display against Clare in the All-Ireland semi-final given he didn’t start – only to watch free-taker Declan Hannon experience a near total meltdown.

Dowling was introduced after just 32 minutes, but it was too late.

"It didn't bother me at all," he says. "Declan is one of my best friends. I've more or less grown up with him, since first year. I was as disgusted as anyone was.

'A serious talent'
"Let's be honest, it could happen to me this Sunday. Declan could come on next year and bang them all over. The decision was made. Declan is a serious talent and free-taker. Look it, it happens to everyone, and doesn't make a difference at this stage."

Dowling had started most of Limerick’s champions matches in 2012, so to be reduced to a substitute’s role this summer must have felt like something of a comedown.

Even with the new joint management team of Donal O’Grady and TJ Ryan he’s taking nothing for granted for 2014:

“That’s the card I was dealt. Every manager has his own philosophy. If Donal or TJ don’t want to pick me next year then that’s down to them. Not to me. All I can do is keep the head down, work hard. As long as I’m playing that’s all I’ll ever do.”

The venue for Sunday’s final, Cusack Park in Ennis, decided on a toss – offers Sixmilebridge an advantage, if only mentally.

Dowling has played there three times already, and actually has some Clare ties himself, at least as a youngster, when his admiration of then Clare champions St Joseph’s Doora-Barefield ended up in his brief employment as team mascot.

“Yeah, as a young lad, I could nearly say I followed Clare,” he recalls, “given the influence that was brought upon me. I was only six, but I really appreciated it, all those guys around me, they were after winning an All-Ireland with Clare.”

Although still a young team, and indeed club, Na Piarsaigh are going for a second Munster title in three years (they beat Clare champions Crusheen in 2011, after a replay).

45 years
"We are only a club 45 years now, and there are probably clubs out there 145 years that haven't been lucky enough to win anything. We probably don't appreciate it. But we know what we are facing into on Sunday. Sixmilebridge are a serious team. That Clare championship is very hard to win. Clare are All-Ireland champions. So we know what we are facing into."

It can only help then to have a Clare man in charge of Na Piarsaigh.