Cloonan still has a few scores to settle

ALL-IRELAND CLUB HURLING CHAMPIONSHIPS: Keith Duggan on the glowering talent of Athenry full-forward Eugene Cloonan, who despite enjoying dazzling success at club level since his arrival as a fearless teenage prodigy has yet to taste All-Ireland glory with his county

It is fun to follow the sporting life of Eugene Cloonan through the cold, clear black of newspaper print. Just the brackets after his name are enough. The Athenry man's scoring tallies are, Sunday in, Sunday out, breathtaking in their mass and have the same force on the imagination as that of a thresher across a golden landscape. By sundown, all has changed.

Not that he mows everything before him; since he burst to national prominence with his hometown club of Athenry in 1997, his has been a subtle brilliance, with feline stealth and skill and a stunning ability to whisper his way, sometimes unnoticed, to staggering scores.

Remember his introduction? The club final of 1997 when the land quaked at the thought of this child from the maroon county offered at the altar of Brian Lohan and Wolfe Tones. The details of what occurred over the hour have since become glossed by time and there is a school of support for the recollection that the senior man was run ragged. It was not so simple. Cloonan did score 0-9 of Athenry's winning 0-14 that day, but just two points were from play (with two 65s and five frees).

He drew fouls from the Clare man in the game's dawning minutes, yes, but was left in Lohan's jet stream after a number of races to the ball as well. And in the second half, Cloonan was actually dispatched to roam away from Lohan's home on the edge of the square. A fine battle between a prodigy in the first flush of youth and a defender of genuine greatness still approaching his apex is a closer approximation of that famous exchange.

Cloonan's fearlessness - a gorgeous, overhead double on a long ball still stands out - was the enduring legacy. Nothing appeals to the hurling fraternity as much as freshness and budding greatness, often, you think, because they enjoy the prospect of seeing it reduced and tethered over the years. And afterwards, Cloonan's summary mirrored his wide-eyed, carefree approach to it all.

"During the week," he said, "people were talking about how I'd mark Brian Lohan. But he's a back and I'm a forward. I wasn't going to mark him. He had to mark me." There was no insolence or cockiness in the remark, it was just an honest, unguarded observation. And it is a world away from anything he would say in public today.

"Eugene has changed in that in the beginning, he had the space to devastate opposing defences over the hour," says John McIntyre, the Clarinbridge coach and sports editor of the Connacht Tribune.

"The wheel came full circle and he has been singled out for rough treatment by many defences in recent years. And he can take it. He has bulked up because of that. Cloonan remains the key man for Athenry. For a start, he has this telepathic understanding with Joe Rabbitte. When Rabbitte gets possession, Cloonan is gone, darting into space. He is the ultimate opportunist. He picks off these inspirational points, often from tight corners, and there are few players like him to create a goal out of nothing."

McIntyre stood on the sidelines coaching Carnmore in the 1996 Connacht final. Despite the heat of the game, the hurler in him admired the sheer poise of the minor, as Cloonan was then, skinny-limbed with those pale-burning blue eyes looking out from under a helmet. Already, he was the real thing.

BUT then, you have to go back to nappies to arrive at a time when he wasn't. PJ Molloy, the Athenry manager back in 1997, remembers him leading the 1993 minor team to a championship from goal.

"He was so young that was where we stuck him, but he had it, the reflexes, the confidence. He was great. Sure he won an All-Ireland Under-21 with Galway in goal in 1996. From as long as I knew Eugene, he had a great mentality, he was very strong willed about his game. Just one of those lads that is a tiger on the field and a lamb off it."

It is true Cloonan, an All-Star in 2001, has emerged as the most reluctant of

heroes. He is painfully reticent about speaking to the media and has a genuine discomfort at the mere prospect of any kind of unnecessary exposure. For years, the black helmet he wore seemed almost as much a mask from the crowds as a safety device, and when he discarded it in recent years, he did so emphatically, shaving his head for good measure. And he is an expressive player, glowering and intense.

After this year's Galway county final, in which Athenry beat Sarsfields, Cloonan's joy was notably demonstrative as he moved among his own in the minutes after the final whistle. It was understandable. Like Birr, the Galway club is closing in on history. Each side is seeking to become the first club to win four club hurling All-Irelands. And in Cloonan's experience, being from Athenry means winning. His town has lost three senior championship games in seven years - to Clarinbridge last year by a point, to St Joseph's-Doora-Barefield of Clare in the 1999 All-Ireland semi-final by a point, and to Sarsfields in the Galway quarter- final a number of years back. Abbey-Knockmoy are the only other team to have beaten them in championship fare and that was not an elimination game.

The success is significant as it is in stark contrast to Cloonan's wildly fluctuating fortunes in the maroon of his county. This year's championship provided the most starkly disappointing experience, fittingly, perhaps, in the company of his great foe Lohan. It is generally accepted the Clare man out-psyched and out-played Cloonan in that terse quarter-final, and although the accusations have been levelled at Galway for not using their danger man more imaginatively when the primary plan failed, it was a dispiriting day for the forward.

Cloonan's love for Galway hurling and his desire to help the county return to the highs last experienced in 1988 - when he was in his post-communion days - shines through on all big game days. And there have been many, many highs - 2-9 against Kilkenny in the 2001 All-Ireland semi-final being among the best because he managed it without even looking particularly on form.

"Look, when a forward scores that in an All-Ireland semi-final, there isn't really much more to say," says PJ Molloy.

Destiny, however, the bridge to Molloy's own All-Ireland success has not happened yet. And the fact that he has been around the scene for so long means that on the days of great regret, much of the verbal blame falls on Cloonan's young shoulders, even as it bounced off the great Rabbitte a few years ago.

"Well, it would be true that sections of the Galway hurling public haven't taken Rabbitte and Eugene Cloonan to heart in the same way as they did Joe Cooney, for instance," says McIntyre.

"But part of that might be inspired by envy. Athenry have dominated the Galway club scene to a phenomenal extent. That has been frustrating for other clubs."

Tomorrow in the Athenry dressing-room it will be like old times, with Brian Feeney, the captain of Athenry's 1997 All-Ireland triumph, back after a period spent away in Milan. And Cloonan, as ever, is amassing the scores - 0-9 against Four Roads, 4-9 of 4-15 during a stroll over in London in his last two outings.

Perhaps it is simpler when it's home, when it's just like the games of backs and forwards the Cloonan clan used play in the evenings of his childhood. Perhaps Cloonan has parallel careers. Athenry is the constant, the source of happiness. Galway is a more complicated entity, something that Cloonan is still coming to terms with.

"No, I don't think there is any separation there," is PJ Molloy's belief. "Eugene would love to win an All-Ireland with Galway and I think that remains his be all and end all in the game. Hurling with Athenry is special, and this year he is helping the club to try and make history. But in the long run it's a stepping stone to what he wants to do with Galway."

The good news for Galway is that time, the ultimate thresher, is a fair way off him yet. Cloonan is still only 23. He has the right to be allowed to develop. But so incandescent were his early movements the fans, near and distant, got excited, and now five seasons have appeared and faded, so they demand a coronation, a completion. In that sense, the Cloonan story is tied up with Galway's now fatalistic quest for a return to All-Ireland glory. It may come. It probably will come.

But the bones of it lie in days like tomorrow. Cloonan holds the key. His will be the name on all lips. Isn't that the way it's always been?