Focused on the pulse of Clare

Clarecastle stands guard like the outermost turret of Ennis. It's difficult to pass through the little town, the home of the "magpies", without thinking of hurling in general and of Anthony Daly in particular.

Across the bridge over which the people of Clarecastle carried Daly and his townsmen on the night after the All-Ireland final two years ago, past the broad village green, where Daly spoke so eloquently of his childhood and his club and his county on that flame-lit evening, and out again past Maddens Terrace on the right, where Daly and a roll call of other greats were nurtured and reared. Past Maddens Terrace and on to Ennis.

"I suppose you want a few bob," says Anthony Daly.

"T'would be handy alright," says the woman. "By the way, the fancy ones have the yellow ribbon around them."

"Right so," says Daly, and lays several bundles of saffron-and-blue Clare flags down behind the cash desk, beside a batch of hurleys. "I'll be looking for more soon."

It's Munster final week, and, if the sacred, do-or-die formula of the most revered competition in hurling has been diluted this year, there are no signs of diminished enthusiasm on O'Connell Street in Ennis. Anthony Daly's sports goods shop serves as hurling head-quarters. They can't make the fancy flags or the replica Clare jerseys quickly enough for Anthony to slip them back over the counter into the hands of paying customers.

He's had his shop for about 12 months now and is just coming to the end of his first year's leave of absence from his old bank job. He's hopeful that his recent application for a second year of leave will be a formality. There's something satisfying about running his own place, especially with his wedding looming before Christmas.

A handful of whispering young fellas come in and begin searching through the piles of Clare jerseys. Their sizes won't be in till the morning.

"What time do ye open at?"

"Early". But they won't be here first thing."

"We'll wait so."

They'll wait. They could go to any other sports shop in Ennis, but the buying of a Clare jersey from the man who has worn the colours with such distinction is a little value-added thrill which no other vendor can match.

Clare are on the roll again and Daly is once again their totem and their captain and one of their most visible faces. He'd be the last one to notice it, let alone say it, but so much of his character reflects or defines the character of the team he leads.

His captaincy came about literally by accident in 1992. He was so good at it, they left him with the job ever since. There was a time a couple of years later, as the team developed, when a conscious decision had to be made as to who its leader would be. They stuck with Daly. This year he tried to relinquish the position. "FelIas will start talking about me soon." He wasn't allowed. They left it with Daly.

It fits him lightly.

Some guys are good leaders, but it would bother them to be captain of the team," he says. If they were in trouble out on the pitch they'd be worrying. It used always be the county champions had the captaincy. Tommy Guilfoyle was captain in 1992. He got injured, caught his hands in a lawnmower on the day before the game with Waterford. There was no vice captain and we were stuck.

"I'm sure Len Gaynor asked a couple of other guys. Fairly sure he asked John Russell, because John would have been the main man there, the centre back and the leader. I think John pointed him in my direction. I was on the team and fairly established by then.

"We hadn't won a match in a few years and nobody knew what they were in for. We drew that day and got a replay out of it. I kind of got bold in the replay and let a few shouts out at half-time. We hurled well in the second half. I've been captain ever since."

Something of Daly has seeped back into the team. Earnest when it matters, sociable when it's needed. No team have built to success on a foundation of solid character quite like Clare have. If the character was forged in the bad days, well, Daly was around for the most of them and for the worst of them.

The Munster hurling final, Tipperary, Daly's captaincy and Clare's implacable character are all inextricably tangled.

Daly thinks so too. There is a softly articulated regret in Clare that the new format of the championship means that if Clare win tomorrow, they won't be putting Tipperary away for a full 12 months. The Munster title has been reduced to a battle for bragging rights. Keenly fought for all that. In Clare, they feel that bragging is a cottage industry in Tipperary.

"There's nothing held back any day against Tipp," says Daly. "You always look forward to it. Of course, usually if you beat them in a Munster final they'd be gone for a year, you don't have to be worrying about them for a while. Presumably if we win on Sunday, well, we'd be nice and gracious about it. You wouldn't want them feeling a bit sore in case you'd need to beat them again. They'd be back to haunt you if you put your foot in it. That's a factor."

Through the bad years Clare battered themselves against the wall of Tipperary excellence with heartbreaking results. It's hard for any of the players who were there to forget the deflation and dejection which followed their breakthrough to a Munster final in 1993. Clare beat Limerick and beat Cork and then got blown back out onto the scrap heap when Tipperary put 3- 27 past them. Playing Tipperary has had a special edge ever since.

"Because it's Tipperary, Sunday is special. It's special against Tipperary even if it's a league game in winter. Both teams survive on Sunday, but it'll be a huge psycho-logical blow to whoever loses. I'd find it hard to see whoever loses that coming back to win an All-Ireland. Unless it's us! If you look back over the last while, they mightn't think there's big rivalry in it, but we do. We'll be going all out."

He searches for the words to describe just what it is that makes Tipperary different. Do they rub their noses in it on their good days?

"Well you said that, I didn't," he says, laughing like a man who has had his nose rubbed in it. "Maybe it's their tradition. They've won so much that they are . . well, I won't say arrogant, but let's face it, they're very self assured about themselves, very self assured about themselves and being Tipperary people. Their hurling is the best kind of hurling and they are the premier county and the home of hurling and all that.

"I'm sure it's a good thing from their point of view, but it often catches them out I'd say. In the past 10 years they haven't delivered as much as they are capable of. They'd know that. On the other hand, we'd only aspire to delivering what they delivered. They'd let us know that too.

"It's tough going when Tipperary are going well. It was hard in 1993. Losing by 18 points to anybody is hard, but to Tipp it's especially hard to take."

That afternoon was a personal nightmare for Daly. He began at full back and had to be hauled out of there quickly before he burned the house down.

"Anthony Crosse made me look like a complete ape. I'd got man of the match in the semi-final against Cork and was feeling confident. Perhaps I wasn't tuned in mentally. We just weren't geared for it. We were thrilled with the crowds around and the fuss for tickets and the great occasion and all the fuss. We'd seen nothing like that, running out in front of forty five thousand people. It was a big deal for us.

"The game was a nightmare. Bobby Ryan came in and asked Terence Murray how long was left and I remember he held his hand up. Eight fingers. I remember thinking, "Oh Jesus, not eight more minutes". I just wanted to get the hell out of there. Worst day of my life in hurling.

"What did I do? I went away and drank as much cider as I could. Came home to Clarecastle for a while and on into Ennis. The Willie Clancy festival was starting in Milltown Malbay on the Monday and we went off, myself and Fergus Tuohy and Stephen Sheehy. We didn't come back till Thursday. Kept the head down out in football country, stayed in a safe house in Quilty. Started training with CLarecastle again a fortnight later.

PROGRESS was still measured against Tipperary, but it took them the longest time to learn the whole lesson. They progressed to the stage the following year when they beat a Tipp team which was missing a few star turns. They knew they were nearly good enough. Not good enough, but nearly. Limerick beat them by nine points in the Munster final.

"Look at how it went" says Daly. "You learn on the bad days. I came on in 1989 and we were beaten by 18 points. Involved again in 1990 and Limerick beat us 2-16 to 1-5. The next year Limerick beat us by three points in a game we were never going to win. Lost in a replay to Waterford in 1992, and then won a couple of games in 1993 before Tipp put 3-27 past us. In 1994, we lost the Munster final by nine points. If fellas keep coming back and giving it a lash after that, you're left with leaders. It builds characters."

He remembers the morning of the league final against Kilkenny in 1995, the first half of an abject day which would lead most observers to write Clare off for good.

"We were outside Thurles in a place called The Rag, pucking around on a pitch. I remember a car load of fans passing by - don't know where they were from - but they rolled down the windows and leaned out: Don't choke again today lads! Out the car window taunting us. Big joke. We lost again." I remember asking afterwards if we were all chokers.

Their survival and prospering had as much to do with character as with hurling. Ger Loughnane has been explicit on the trade-off between character and skill. Ninety per cent of the time character gets the call. Not hard to imagine who the template was when Loughnane began moulding the team's character.

"You need six or seven fellas on a team who'll take it by the scruff of the neck," says Daly. "Sean McMahon came on in 1994 and he took great responsibility. Brian Lohan was on in 1993, and he was bound to be quiet that year. By 1995 he was an influence. Jamesie (O'Connor) was established too. Lads like The Sparrow (Ger O'Loughlin) and Ollie Baker would pull their weight that way. Frank Lohan. Fellas like who didn't have too much time for tradition. They'd rather be on DJ Carey because they'd heard of him.

The team is distinctly different now. He remembers in 1989 and 1990 being in Clare dressing rooms and soaking in the ambience and realising that the ambience suggested defeat. Players were distracted and unfocused.

Today, Daly feels like a club player when he is among his county team mates. Comfortable and focused. On the big days, when a team has worked hard for a club championship game, nobody really has to say anything before a game. It's like that in Clare.

"The effort has gone in. We know each other well. We know what the game means. There's this feeling. We have done it together lads, we're here and we're not doing it to compete anymore. We are doing it to win. That sort of thing looks after itself if you have the right people."

It's still awkward for him, the business of speaking in front of players, in front of his peers. He does it because somebody has to do it. He can manage the captaincy without it disrupting his game. Perhaps it feeds his game.

Not too many weeks ago the Clare panel shed eight players who'd been there through the winter. He wonders about them and other players on the fringes of the action. What their perception of him must be.

"Last weekend we had a players meeting." We get together on our own maybe three times a year. Somebody has to start it off always. It's always me. I'd be speaking and I'd always know that there must be fellas in the room, especially fellas who put in the work but don't get the jersey, who say to themselves, We're sick of listening to that boor and his opinions'.

They must sit back and think that it's fine for me to talk about putting it in.

"Then again. Just the weekend past we had a players' meeting. Nothing tactical, but just to reassure ourselves that we are motivated and just to leave the room feeling focused. In fairness, a lot of the fellas who would have said things would have been guys who were about 20th or 25th in the panel or whatever. That's reassuring."

He has needed reassurance. After they lost to Kilkenny in the league this spring he was seriously worried. Perhaps the intensity and focus stuff was getting old. The new players weren't streaming through like they should have been. They'd lost in Galway in the game before, watching in horror in Athenry as Galway blew five first half goals into the Clare net.

"I'd put that down to a freak," says Daly. "We played well" in the second half. We went to Kilkenny then and wanted to win it badly. We didn't play well. Some days you do the right things and it just doesn't happen. Coming home that night I remember thinking, are we getting a bit rusty, are we burnt out a bit?"

He thinks not. Tomorrow he'll sample their focus and their intensity and hunger and he'll know.

At the very heart of the team, Daly can feel and influence how the blood courses through it. If Clare's heart doesn't pump properly against Tipp, well, the malaise is terminal.

He expects a cheerier diagnosis though.