GAVIN CUMMISKEYtalks to Tony Griffin who notes the star turns who have retired but remains optimistic

WHEN TONY Griffin was asked about the celebrity status of a certain Galway hurler and how the said magician could be contained, the Clare hurler, and occasional cross-continental cyclist, inadvertently switched attention back to the current lack of Banner heroes.

“It’s amazing, I was there yesterday (at the Halifax Gaelic Performance summer camp) and the amount of kids out pretending they’re Joe Canning . . . I asked how many Clare players they knew and they said ‘Brian Lohan’. I said he’s retired about two years; ‘Davy Fitz’, he’s retired about three years. They didn’t know about Gilly! (Niall Gilligan)”

Names like (Alan) Markham, (Diarmuid) McMahon and even Griffin ring out without attaining household status.

Maybe these adolescents need baseball cards or sticker albums to put names to the masked faces of hurling’s middle ranks.

Three Clare names up in lights might be Colin Lynch, Frank Lohan and Gerry Quinn but, as Griffin noted with a tinge of regret, they permanently holstered their ash blades last summer.

Griffin is perhaps better known in the wider sporting world for a 7,000km cycle across North America in 2007 to raise funds for cancer charities; an admirable, and well-documented tale inspired by the loss of his father Jerome to the illness.

The cycle meant Griffin missed the last meeting with Galway, in Ennis two years ago, when Ger Loughnane famously returned to his old patch and failed. His decision to name the team in the pre-match huddle and subsequent defeat allowed media, spectators and particularly players the opportunity to sharpen the knives. Clare won 2-10 to 0-14 as the ill-fated relationship between Loughnane and Galway reached the turn.

There was no Joe Canning in Ennis that evening.

Tonight Clare hurling seeks to cause a sizeable ripple by scalping a team that forced Kilkenny deep into their reserves in the Leinster semi-final. But two years on the landscape has utterly changed, with Canning approaching the mythical level some have already lofted him on to.

Clare, however, remain a team in deep transition. Defeat to Tipperary in Munster was at least honourable with new names sprinkled among the likes of Griffin, McMahon, Tony Carmody, Brian O’Connell and, of course, Gilligan. The 1-22 to Tipp’s 3-18 scoreline surely gave Mike McNamara encouragement heading back to the training paddock.

“Absolutely,” Griffin concurs. “Every line of the field we had a new starter in the league. The likes of Kilkenny can get away with that because they have such a conveyor belt of talent. It’s pure numbers, a numbers game. We don’t have that in Clare.

“We don’t have the same thing. We’re trying to get to where we have stronger underage club structures but if you look at the likes of the lads that were playing this year, Colin Lynch retired, Frank Lohan retired – even losing Gerry Quinn was a big blow.

“They’re three of your best players, who’d arguably make any county team in the country. They’re big holes to fill. If Kilkenny lost three of those it would be different. If Galway lost Joe Canning . . . Colin Lynch was perhaps as important to us as someone of his stature is to Galway.

“You can’t just find players overnight. They have to be developed. Players like Joe Canning don’t just come on the scene from nowhere. They are special talents but they’ve developed over years. In Clare I feel we are developing players. When you look at the likes of Colin Ryan – what a championship debut – James McInerney has been there since Anthony Daly’s term and is gradually developing into a brilliant full back. I think there were huge points for optimism coming out of it.”

There is no doubting the positive impact of McInerney and particularly Ryan against Tipperary. Now they must repeat the trick. The tight, familiar confines of Cusack Park is a help?

“I think it is . . . even logistically you understand it more at home. I don’t think it adds any pressure to you whatsoever. You’re used to your routine. Little things like that can be very important rather than travelling to Galway, eating in a hotel you don’t know. We understand Ennis very well. I think it is an advantage but like any advantage it’s only an advantage in hindsight; when you win, they’ll say ‘ah, it was home advantage’. But you make your own advantage, I suppose.”

Taking this opportunity would create a massive dent in the championship, not to mention representing a huge setback for Galway, especially considering how the Tribesmen battled against Kilkenny for so long.

“They’re a good team,” admits Griffin before landing a gentle blow to Loughnane’s solar plexus. “I think they’re much better than they’ve been in years. I don’t know is that because they realise they now have a serious squad or because they got rid of Ger Loughnane; I’d say it’s a bit of both. If we give them the same lead we gave Tipperary we just won’t pull it off.”

Maybe the narrow pitch will help them cut off supply-lines, allowing McInerney time to envelope the Chosen One?

“Jesus, I’d say you’d want to bring the goals to the two 21s to stop the ball getting in to Joe Canning! Yeah, Kilkenny seemed to do a good job of it. You have to accept he’s going to score a certain amount. He’s going to get ball in his hand and if he does he’s a clinical finisher.

“He’s going to score certain amounts especially if you give him 21s and that. I suppose just like Kilkenny you physically don’t allow him to get the ball. That’s what every team will be trying to do. It’s a simple enough tactic.”

Maybe, just maybe, Clare under McNamara, with a balanced mix of old and new hurlers, can ruin Galway’s breakthrough summer. After the initial Tipperary onslaught, Griffin noticed a new calmness all over the field.

“Around five minutes to go in the first half, just before Diarmuid (McMahon) got the goal, I think we were eight or nine points down, I remember just a few of us shouting to each other: ‘Just stay patient, we’ll pull this back’. That wouldn’t even have happened two or three years ago. Even when the likes of Brian Lohan and Colin Lynch were there, there were times in the latter years when we didn’t respond to being down like that so I think there’s huge cause for optimism.”