Passion keeps fires burning

At the end of a torrid week, some hurling. It wasn't the sweetest or most redeeming game but it caught the imagination and freed most of the bad spirits which fogged the hurling consciousness for a week.

A late free from Jamesie O'Con nor yesterday left Clare pencilling in another replay on their already full dance card. By the replay on August 22nd, Clare will have Brian Lohan back in his helmet of post-box red and Offaly will no longer be dismissed as effete, fine-day merchants. Yesterday they looked stoked and ready. They weren't the story however. Ger Loughnane. From the start of the week to the end he was centre stage and cooking.

In the Clare dressing-room Loughnane was barefoot and stripped to the waist. No cloven feet. No tail. No horns. We flame-proofed ourselves and approached. Confinement to the stand, albeit the square footage most adjacent to the Clare bench, had dimmed him somewhat. Big games usually leave him wired. Yesterday Ger Loughnane looked tired.

"It was like being a spectator at the game," he said of being a spectator at the game, "not like being part of the team, just like helplessness sitting there at the side. It was such a seesaw game - on top one minute, tide turning against us in the next and we were hanging on by our fingernails."

Indeed, they had dangled from the cliff-top briefly, but so had Offaly. We never speak about Offaly without reciting the little rote that they'd be a great team if they were half-interested. Yesterday they were interested. They came back from four points down to one point ahead.

Loughnane noted their passion and sensed their spark but his eyes rove over just one team. "We like to create space but Offaly like to close you down and they did it today. After all the demonisation and character assassination of the Clare team and management, we went out there and nobody can say that we didn't behave honourably. What I said was that our honour was at stake today, that people had called that into question."

They left with their honour intact and the same amount of players they started with, and if the replay is to achieve anything it might be to purge hurling's system of the queerness of the past week.

Loughnane himself seemed tired of it yesterday, but still flipped on the unplugged version of some of his greatest hits when he got into his stride. The media and the GAA are things which keep him awake at night perhaps. He warmed slowly to this topics.

That his team were still alive and kicking was what preoccupied him yesterday, though.

"We have given tremendous value to the game of hurling since 1995. The appetite this year is greater than ever, we have a greater appetite, everybody is already looking forward to the replay."

"What people in the outside didn't understand was that the team had no part in it whatsoever. I said in all the training sessions, all the players that ring me up, I'd say, `Ye're job is half-three on Sunday'. I don't care what goes on but players must be protected. That was the whole point of the whole week. Players, their reputations and everything must be protected."

Then just as it seemed that he was done with it, some undiplomatic divil in his tongue dragged him back to the subject.

"And justice, justice should be dispensed equally. That's what enraged me last week. I don't care if we are punished. I took my punishment. We'll take our punishment provided it is dispensed equally and that is what the Munster Council have on their conscience. They did not dispense justice equally.

"Now you may disagree but we had a huge case put up by Munster Council and we weren't allowed in the door by the Munster Council to present it."

"Human rights. Say whatever you like, the GAA have their own way of operating things, but I never ever want to hear anybody talking again about abuse of human rights in other countries. There is an abuse of human rights going on with the GAA where everybody should have the right to represent themselves or be defended. Colin Lynch nominated two people to represent him to the Munster Council. They were locked outside the door. They were not allowed in to do so."

In an era when GAA managers are acquiring the studied blandness of their soccer counterparts, this stuff is a godsend. Passion beats public relations any day. Ger has passion flashing like blue neon in his eyes.

"I would die for any one of those fellas out there. They would do the same for me. Maybe I go over the top. I'll admit that hopefully to anybody, sometime or other, but it's all for the players who give everything to Clare. Any of us who go out give it our absolute best and since 1995 we have been involved in one fracas, a three-minute fracas which both sides were responsible for. We seemed to take all the responsibility and blame for it. That was wrong."

He goes on, speculating freely about Croke Park's hand in the events of last week, absolving Marty Morrissey for the exaggerated news of Colin Lynch's grandmother's demise. Clare FM should stop interviewing Ger Loughnane and give him his own show.

"Did you ever see such a crowd to travel up for a semi-final? We'll be eternally grateful. We have won two All Irelands, three Munster finals, but today is the day that will linger in my mind forever. When I close my eyes for the last time I'll remember that crowd. OK lads." Nobody gives better quotes or better value than Ger Loughnane.

We left hoping that it would be a long time before he closes his eyes or his mouth forever.