Play days make the manager

According to Ger Loughnane, his sons were watching TnaG's recent re-broadcast of the 1966 All-Ireland hurling final. In stark affirmation of video's impact on nostalgia, one looked up and inquired of his father: "Were you as bad as that?"

Everything is relative, but Loughnane's career between 1973 and '87 was about as distinguished as is possible for anyone locked into an unsuccessful county. One of the great wing backs of the 1970s, his experiences - five Munster final defeats - as a player were seminal influences on the man who was to lead Clare to undreamed-of achievements within a decade of his retirement.

He surprised this reporter in 1994 by declaring that he found coaching more fulfilling than playing. Most former players are incapable of fully getting over the end of their careers, but there were pointers in Loughnane's past that suggested he was going to be an even more celebrated mentor.

Justin McCarthy, former Cork All-Ireland winning player and coach, was involved with Clare in the mid-1970s. "As a player, he was one of the best in the '70s. He played in a great half-back line with Sean Hehir and Sean Stack, but he was just that bit more complete as a player than the others.

"He also had an independent streak that marked him out as a likely leader and I'd say helped him over setbacks like being taken off the under-21s (Loughnane was replaced as manager of the 1992 team after doing an acknowledged good job - an experience which upset him greatly at the time)."

Loughnane's hurling career - like so many others in the county - began in earnest in St Flannan's College, Ennis, where he came under the influence of Fr Seamus Gardiner (now Munster Council PRO) and Fr Willie Walsh (now Bishop of Killaloe).

Now resident in Shannon, he is a native of Feakle and returned to his native club late in his career to win a county championship in 1988 at corner back.

McCarthy says that Loughnane grasped, with probably greater clarity than any outsider could, what deficiencies were preventing Clare from breaking through.

As a player, his career wasn't exactly barren - two National League medals, 1977 and '78 in addition to two All Stars, 1974 and '77 - but those achievements were overshadowed by agonising Munster final defeats to Cork in 1977 and '78.

"He went deeper into how Clare people think," says McCarthy, "why they failed and how to succeed. Clare is so traditional with the music and dance and the hurling. There is such a sense of enjoyment in the county - it was almost as if they were, with all due respect, glad to be there, at the odd Munster final, happy to take part rather than serious about winning. Ger saw this and realised that you can't enjoy it, that it's all about winning. Then you can enjoy it."

If Clare's history was about being happy to take part, none of it rubbed off on Loughnane. Limerick's Eamonn Cregan played against Clare several times during that period.

"He was a hard, intelligent wing back who used the ball extremely well. He had a tremendous will to win and didn't like being beaten. I always remember him as a very dedicated player who thought about the game a lot."

Curiously, when Cregan managed Clare for a spell in the 1980s, at the end of Loughnane's career, he found him uncommunicative.

"He was very intense about the game and didn't talk a lot. He listened and heard, but whether he was taking it in or not, I'd never know. He knew how to play his game. He'd accept what you said, but without any discussion - `Ok, I'll do it'."

Justin McCarthy believes that, above all, Loughnane has brought great enthusiasm to coaching, from all the under-age work with Shannon's Wolfe Tones to the county team.

"He could have fallen away at 26 or 28 or 31 with all the disappointments, but he never lost his appetite. You need that enthusiasm. If you have 20 or 30 fellas out in a field at training, everyone talks about the need for you to keep them motivated, but the man that needs most motivation is yourself."