MUNSTER SHC CLARE v TIPPERARY AND LIMERICK v WATERFORD:Hurling is taking a back seat to rugby with young sportsmen in Clare. Brian Lohan tells IAN O'RIORDANit is a challenge that must be answered
NOT SINCE the 1993 Munster final when Nicky English famously high-fived Pat Fox has the heart of Clare hurling sank so low. Relegation from Division One of the National League was so traumatic that manager Mike McNamara seemed in denial for several days afterwards, and he surely wasn’t the only one.
In the meantime Colin Lynch laid down his hurl and walked off into the sunset to join that exclusive retirement club of Brian and Frank Lohan, Seánie McMahon, James O’Connor, Ollie Baker and indeed, Anthony Daly and Davy Fitzgerald. So Niall Gilligan is the only remaining thread to their last All-Ireland success in 1997 and suddenly it’s as if the Clare hurlers aren’t giants anymore, but mere men.
They’re given little chance against Tipperary tomorrow – not that they’ve no chance – although those closest to hurling in Clare have other issues on their mind, the holes that still exist in underage structures, the delay in upgrading and expanding facilities, and the increasingly real and damaging threat that rugby now presents to some of the foundations of Clare hurling.
While 10 years ago few youngsters in places like Ennis, Shannon and Newmarket-on-Fergus could be found without a hurl in their hand, these days many such youngsters have a rugby ball in their hand. The success of Munster rugby and also clubs such as Shannon has opened a whole other world of sporting opportunity, and the attractions of it are obvious; fame, fortune, even the chance to tour South Africa with the British and Irish Lions.
Clare aren’t alone in facing this competition from the oval ball, but unlike, say, Dublin, Cork and Limerick, they don’t have the population to cope. If Clare are to revisit the heights of 1995 and 1997 then they can’t afford to be losing their best young sporting talent to rugby, at least not in the numbers they’re currently experiencing. Hurling has to strike back, particularly in these urban areas.
Because the talent is still there, says Brian Lohan – and he knows what he’s talking about. Since retiring in 2006, Lohan had been keen to put something back into the county, and after playing on for a couple more years with his club Wolfe Tones in Shannon, got his chance late last year when the Clare minor management team of Donal Moloney and Gerry O’Connor invited him on board.
“It’s more to give them a hand out”, says Lohan, “to add a different voice, some different ideas, to the set-up. There are good quality guys there, serious guys, and ambitious. They want to improve, want you to identify their weaknesses, or how you can improve their left side or right side or whatever it is. But when you have good guys like that you have to look after them, get the best advice to them, and if you do look after players you will get the rewards.
“But you can’t expect to get the rewards before looking after the players. If players see themselves well looked after they will respond. But that’s an area Clare does fall down on. That includes everything from gear to facilities. One of our biggest problems this year was actually to get pitches. You’d think that should be the least of your worries.”
Still, Lohan’s role with the Clare minors got off to a impressive start last month when they ambushed a fancied Waterford team in the first round of the Munster championship – only for Waterford to come back through the losers round to re-draw Clare.
So they meet again next Wednesday. But what Lohan is more concerned about is the impact rugby is having on Clare’s urban hurling scene. While more rural clubs such as Tulla, Clonlara, Crusheen and Ballyhea are actually strengthening their base, areas where hurling should naturally be strong are finding it more difficult to sustain their tradition.
“We’re not getting the return out of the urban centres,” says Lohan. “The likes of Éire Óg, in Ennis, which has a population of over 30,000. Shannon as well. You’ll always get the return from the traditional strongholds of, say, Sixmilebridge, Clarecastle. But the urban centres aren’t contributing the way they should be, or the way we need them to be, in order for us to compete with the bigger hurling counties.
“The big competition is rugby, in particular, and also soccer. The GAA is finding it very hard to compete with those two brands. In my own club, Wolfe Tones, we’ve certainly lost some top-class hurlers, and footballers, to rugby. Some of them were drafted into the academies in Limerick, where huge numbers are coming in, but with a very small return out of it.
“From what I see, because the rewards are so big, they’re committing themselves full on to try and get it, but you could have 80 young fellas competing for one spot. And they’re taking them from north Tipp and Limerick and some from Cork and Kerry thrown in there as well. All of them looking for maybe one spot on the Munster senior team. And if they have made their mind up to commit to rugby the GAA will take a back seat, because it has to.”
The consequences are twofold; if a youngster opts for rugby that will nearly always be his sole commitment; but if it doesn’t work out in rugby it will be too late to return to hurling.
“The club academy or the Munster academy or whatever it is sounds great, and you think this guy is going to make it, but they’re in there for four or five years and they’re not making any inroads on to the team. The only person I see coming through recently is Keith Earls, although I don’t follow the game of rugby that much. But by all accounts he’s an exceptional talent. But how many hurlers and footballers have we lost in them chasing that dream? To be the next Earls?
“I think it’s something that county boards and even the Munster Council need to wake up to. And need to act on. There are a lot of paid officials now in the GAA, and they need to look at ways of making our games more attractive for young fellas coming up, and to stay with it.”
Like any sport, hurling will only become more attractive with the promise of success, something which Clare hasn’t exactly had to offer since 1997. So even if the chances of making it in rugby are much slimmer, it’s still the chance youngsters are more likely to take.
“But, look, we’re not too despondent about it either,” says Lohan. “We’re not that far away. Inside of Clare we always see ourselves as contenders on the national stage, and we still have a good mentality when it comes to taking on the bigger teams. And our number one sport is still hurling. That’s the game that should be appealing to young fellas.”
What is reassuring is to see the likes of Lohan putting his experience back into the county. Like Ollie Baker with the current senior team, or Fergie Touhy last year. Or David Forde, who earlier this year coached St Caimin’s to their first Dr Harty Cup final. Or James O’Connor, who is consistently involved with St Flannan’s. Like Seánie McMahon who was involved with last year’s minors, or the underage work Colin Lynch is doing with Kilmaley. But there is still the feeling the Clare success of 1995 and 1997 happened more by accident than design, that Ger Loughnane happened to bring together a freakishly talented group of players that succeeded despite any real hurling structure, rather than because of it – that it certainly wasn’t part of any long-term plan.
“One of the failings at the moment is that we still don’t have a plan like that,” admits Lohan. “Or if we do I don’t know about it. We’re depended too much on the Trojan work of individuals at certain levels, be it under-16 level or minor level. We need to move away from this reliance on individuals doing all the work.
“You see then what the likes of Kilkenny have coming through every year. It’s a lot more haphazard for us. Like going nine years winning only one Munster minor championship game. That isn’t good enough. That’s a generation in hurling terms, and certainly you have to say that we can do better.”
