Clare 2-10 Galway 0-14: Ten years ago in the same dressingrooms in Cusack Park, Ennis, Ger Loughnane gave a bravura performance in a wide-ranging media conference at the end of Clare's All-Ireland press night. On Saturday evening he was in a different world, trying to explain the incoherent and lacklustre efforts by his current charges, Galway.
As usual Loughnane was blunt in his appraisal, professing himself baffled by the dire shortcomings of his team before volunteering that he might not be the right manager to find whatever alchemy is needed to turn Galway into a side resembling even the sum of its parts let alone something greater.
"The lads were all fired up," he said. "You can't question their dedication. But there is something seriously wrong with the psyche in Galway when they cannot produce the goods in the real intensity of a game in championship - I'm talking about now, not the intensity that you got three or four years ago.
"It is my job to get it into them and whether it's like a switch that you can just turn on or something that can only come gradually I'll know very soon.
"If we produce another bad performance against Antrim next Saturday, even if we scrape through, you can take it that the show is over - that my time in Galway is over, that I wouldn't be the man to do it.
"If we produce another performance like that, even if we scrape into the quarter-finals, I have no business whatsoever being in Galway. It's going to take somebody else."
On an evening when Clare, with Loughnane's old selector Tony Considine now pacing the home sideline, pulled off another qualifier coup by all but progressing to one of the less-taxing All-Ireland quarter-finals, it was nonetheless Galway's bankruptcy that dominated post-match discussion among many of the 14,551 who attended the game.
Galway had looked ill at ease all evening. In the first half their defence panicked whenever high ball was launched on top of them, and their forwards were consistently driven off by hungrier and stronger opponents.
At times it was like the old days. Frank Lohan dominated like his brother used to do at full back, at one stage outsprinting Eugene Cloonan to the sliotar and raising the crowd. At centre back Gerry Quinn was combative and solid, adding a touch of nostalgia by shooting a 65 and an even longer-range free in the style of the retired Seán McMahon.
The only blot on the afternoon for Clare was Quinn's departure with a knee injury after 55 minutes.
"Gerry Quinn has a serious injury," said Considine later.
"We really battled and when a team shows that kind of heart no-one can give out to me if we lost it by a point," he added.
Galway's backs got better in the second half but their forwards never got any sort of a grip on matters.
They sniped for a few points and did well to go in level at the break even if Clare had wasted a stack of good scoring chances.
The decisive score came on the hour when Niall Gilligan - not otherwise having the best of days - fastened on to a long delivery from Alan Markham after it had been broken and whipped in the goal for a three-point lead, 2-8 to 0-11.
That score followed the one identified by Considine as the most important of the evening, a long-range point from the veteran Colin Lynch that levelled the match after a scoreless 10 minutes. What little momentum Galway had was draining away as the crowd rose to Lynch.
"The other side," said Loughnane, mitigating his disappointment, "is that I'm delighted for Tony Considine after all he went through for the last four or five months, the scurrilous deeds that were done to him by the county board and to see him have his day in the sun is the other side of the coin.
"It's great credit to Tony to have a team in that kind of shape, and I hope that those who tried to down him hang their heads in shame and shut up.
"If we could only get a percentage of that guts, heart and determination into the Galway team, it overcomes all flaws. You can have limitations but when you have that sort of guts and determination, it'll carry you a long way and you'll get the breaks," added Considine, who was sufficiently happy to play down the achievement: "At the end of the day it was a great result but it was only a qualifying game.
"Everyone knows myself and Ger Loughnane are very great and we'll probably get together for a game of golf when I get time and Ger gets time. Hopefully, both of us will go through."
GALWAY: 1 C Callinan; 18 F Moore, 19 T Regan, 4 D Collins (capt); 20 S Kavanagh, 6 J Lee, 7 G Mahon; 10 A Kerins, 9 D Tierney (0-1); 22 R Murray (0-3), 11 D Forde (0-1), 12 I Tannian (0-1); 24 K Wade (0-2), 14 E Cloonan (0-5, four frees and a 65), 15 D Hayes. Subs: 21 F Healy for Regan (half-time), 23 K Broderick for Tierney (54 mins), 8 E Lynch (0-1) for Wade (60 mins). Yellow cards: Tannian (13 mins), Murray (30 mins), Forde (60 mins).
CLARE: 1 P Brennan; 2 G O'Grady, 3 F Lohan (capt), 4 K Dilleen; 20 A Markham, 6 G Quinn (0-2, free and 65), 7 B Bugler; 8 B O'Connell, 19 C Lynch (0-2); 10 D O'Rourke (1-1), 11 D McMahon (0-1), 22 A Quinn; 14 N Gilligan (1-4, two points frees, one 65), 21 B Nugent, 18 D O'Connell. Subs: 15 J Clancy for A Quinn (half-time), 13 D Quinn for D O'Connell (46 mins), 9 J McInerney for G Quinn (55 mins).
Referee: Dickie Murphy (Wexford).
