Wise words from two old rivals
The standard wasn’t what it is now, in training.
We used to do a bit though, Billy. We’d won nothing for so many years — 1946 I think was the last time we’d won the league — so we were trying to make a breakthrough. We’d start collective training at the beginning of October, when the league started, and we’d be training away during October, November, into December, maybe take a break for a fortnight for Christmas, then back again, and it was heavy enough. I felt myself that come June every year, our team was a small bit stale.
Most teams wouldn’t start until February, March.
Justin (McCarthy) came up to us, and that wasn’t his cup of tea really, he reckoned we were doing too much of it.
In his book (Hooked, with Kieran Shannon), he says he wanted the team to have a break after winning the first league, in 1976, but he was outvoted by Harry Bohan and Colum Flynn (the other Clare selectors).
Justin was right, but Colum was the trainer, and it was tough enough with him, I can tell you. When Loughnane went in as manager, he went to Mike Mac to be his trainer, Colum was the physio on that team.
How would Loughnane be viewed down in Clare now? Still a God?
Well he is, but he’s rocking the oul’ boat now, coming at things from a different angle.
I think he’s being misjudged, he has a different job to do now, and he’s doing it. He can’t be a cheerleader for Clare, I don’t think he can ever be neutral where Clare are concerned, but he has to be seen to be objective, or try to be objective anyway.
He has to be controversial, hasn’t he?
I wouldn’t agree with that either; I’m tired of that stupid expression, ‘paper never refused ink’, I don’t see that as our job at all. There’s a perception in Clare that he shouldn’t be criticising the team, the old guard especially, Lohan, Lynch, McMahon. If something is wrong, if something is controversial, what are you supposed to do, ignore it? If it’s there, you have to comment on it or you’re not doing your job. I mean, what he said about Wexford before the Clare game was harsh, but how wrong was he, afterwards? Clare DID hammer them.
Yes, Wexford badly needed to be woken up, didn’t they?
At times the truth is bitter, a lot of people don’t want to hear it.
There are major similarities between this period and that with Cork going for three-in-a-row now, winning three-in-a-row then. Ye nearly caught them twice in Munster — the second year especially ye should have had them, only a point behind at half-time, having played into a gale.
Yeah, and John Horgan had scored four of their five points, from corner-back!
Horgan had this habit of standing 15 yards out in front of you — that’s the worst thing that can happen to a corner-forward, especially if he wins a few balls. And Horgan was such a great striker, any time he cleared the ball, it was 80 or 90 yards down the field. You didn’t know what to do; if you went out in front of him, you were heading for the middle of the field and away from the goals.
That was what he did to us in the first half in 1978. He stood about 20 yards out in front of Pat O’Connor and mopped up everything that came in. In fairness to them, they weren’t good that day, but neither were we. It was set up for us in the second half, but I don’t know, we just couldn’t raise our game. It was a non-event, a very bad game of hurling — awful really. I’d say anyone who was there forgot it fairly lively! It was totally negative, both sets of backs dominated and it never got off the ground. But we were obviously not good enough to do it, simple as that.
What harm but, there was plenty of goals the previous year, 4-15 to 4-11 or something; that was the day Power was sent off. That was very harsh; in fairness to Ray Cummins, he wasn’t a dirty player or anything and wasn’t the type of fella to try and get a fella sent off either. He was a gentleman; he put his hand to his head, he was bleeding I think — I don’t know whether he fell down or not. Power probably deserved a warning alright, but definitely didn’t deserve to be sent off.
What did you make of Justin?
Justin was great. He brought a totally different attitude altogether to our game, our training, our hurling — it had to be speeded up, and he did that. I think, though, his hands were kind of tied a lot of the time. He should have been given total control, but that’s only my view. We’d do a savage hour’s hurling training, maybe an hour and a quarter and then Colum would take over for the physical, which was tough. Justin would come around to you, ‘take it handy there now in the running boy!’, but you couldn’t, you had another three-quarters of an hour to do with Colum. I’m convinced that was part of our problem, we weren’t fresh.
What did you think, Johnny, about Mike Mac’s comments that the team of ‘77/’78 didn’t have the bottle to win the championship?
I didn’t read that book, to be honest, but as I said before, sometimes the truth can be a bit bitter, and definitely we were missing something. Now maybe it was because we weren’t geared right, in our training, but we lacked something. I don’t think it was bottle though, if that was the case we’d have won nothing, and remember, the league was a big deal for Clare that time.
Ye often brought us down to Tulla and by God that was a hard place to try and get a win! When ye took us down there, you wouldn’t get out of it too handy — I don’t think we ever won there.
Wexford were the only team to beat us in Tulla, eventually. We had a few good matches there.
When you saw the boys coming in with the wellingtons, you knew you were in Tulla!
We had a couple of tough matches there after the Brennan incident. That was in the ‘77 final, I think it was Gorman that hit him. Jackie was tough, but he wasn’t dirty; Brennan got the finger broken, and he lost the tip of it after. He went to America on tour with the All-Stars, didn’t get it looked after properly, and it got infected. Ah, ‘twas a pity; Gorman got the blame, but that was wrong I think.
Ah sure it was nothing really.
I was shifted over onto Keher for that final in ‘77 when he was coming to the end of his career. You had to get out in front of him, but you had to make sure you got possession because if it went in behind you, he was more than capable of putting it over the bar.
Some detail, wasn’t he?
Oh he was; tell me, were you on that team?
I was wing-forward, I was on Loughnane for a while. He was a bit loose and left me a bit of space. I was there in ‘76 and ‘78, missed ‘77; spent six months in Australia in ‘76/’77, came back and I was only a sub.
There’s something that often puzzles me — how come we can’t breed forwards the way Kilkenny and Cork seem to do? When I was playing, you couldn’t take your eye off any one of them, and that was the thing about them; you’d think you had them, then one ball, and they’re gone. And they were all like that. Is it our training, our coaching at underage? We won two All-Irelands without a decent forward line. Do they come naturally or what?
Sure you grew up that way — you don’t mind scoring, you know that kind of way; some lads would nearly eat the ball before they’d shoot. There’s a great structure in Kilkenny at underage, around the county.
Shefflin is the latest star forward now, so talented, such skill for a big man. He’s going to cause problems on Sunday, no matter what way you look at it.
Clare have decent forwards too, and good options off the bench with Daithi O’Connell or Barry Nugent.
I don’t think you can take on Kilkenny in a physical game though. Traditionally Kilkenny never minded what way it was played; if it went shoulder-to-shoulder, ye loved it. Even Eddie Keher, a banker, was a big man.
You’d often see him move three lads with one belt of the hip, he was well able to take care of himself. But of course you had to be, in that era from 1959 to the ‘70s. I started in ‘73, in the league, came on as a sub against Cork and marked Con Roche. I finished in ‘86, came on as a sub against Galway. After the match, my wife was coming out with my niece, two Kilkenny people in front of them, one says to the other — “I knew we were finished when I saw Fitzpatrick being brought on!” When she came home and told me that, I knew it was time to hang up the boots.
I started around ‘71 in the championship, played wing-forward funnily enough. Tipperary beat us and went on to win the All-Ireland, but I was taken off at half-time. I was playing with the club at the time in the forwards, and sure you couldn’t help but play well, they’d put the ball into your hand, the likes of Danagher and those. I got a run in the league, quarter-finals, semi-finals that year, then met Tipp. I was on Tadhg O’Connor, a fair man, I can tell you! That finished my inter-county career for a few years, but I came back in ‘74, as a defender and I was more at home there. I finished in ‘80 or ‘81. With the club as well, we were going well for so long, the mileage was there.
Are you impressed with the current Kilkenny team?
Well there was a big debate in Kilkenny at the start of the year about whether Cody should have stayed on or not. When he did stay, he said himself that it was going to be a period of change, and it is. When you lose Peter Barry, DJ, John Hoyne in the one year, that’s tough. We couldn’t help but win Leinster, it was so poor, but we won the league, which was good, though I’d say we probably put more into it than a lot of teams. Galway were going to be tough, but they got over that.
They’re moving well now, I think people are happy enough, though I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a few more changes. They’re getting there, but it’s a bit much to expect that they’ll get there this year. They are still young. John Tennyson centre-back, a young lad, tough bit of stuff, well able to hurl — he’ll be very good but he’s still U21. Take Cha at midfield, try and compare him to Colin Lynch for example, he doesn’t really stand up yet — Lynch is a fair man, though he might just have that bit too much mileage on the clock. He’s a great warrior, but Cha is improving all the time, he was very good against Galway. But we have a few lads like that on the team, and you need big matches under your belt at this level. There’s nothing wrong with the talent, it might just be a year too early for them.
What about the Kilkenny fans? A bit critical, aren’t they?
Yeah, very severe, they expect a lot. You have to be winning All-Irelands really, nothing else will do. Cody now, even with the record he has, is under pressure again this year from the supporters. He had Donncha (his son) on the team there for a while, and that’s hard on both of them. It’s going to be hard for that young fella to get a fair crack of the whip, there’s such pressure on. The fans are very demanding. They want success all the time, an All-Ireland every year, which is not on.
Clare fans went a bit like that too in the last few years, became very critical of the team.
They did — they’re actually not following them, really, not the way they did in the 90s. The novelty is gone now you see, the breakthrough was made, we won two All-Irelands, and all of a sudden people are thinking we should be winning it all the time. I was talking to the county secretary this morning, Pat Fitzgerald, and he was telling me they got 6,000 tickets for this semi-final, he looked for another 2,000, got 1,500. That was going on what he’d sold in the two previous matches. In the 90s, it was 20,000 or 30,000.
There’s a cost factor too, of course.
There is, but that’s not the cause. The criticism Anthony Daly and his players get is atrocious.
He got an awful lot right last year. They produced a great display against Cork in the All-Ireland semi-final.
I had them written off before that game, didn’t think they’d keep it pucked out to Cork. That was a great game of hurling. And they’re better this year; the way they put away Wexford this year — even when they were going well, they were struggling to put away teams like that. I know Wexford weren’t good, but the way they did it was impressive.
Yes, Daly is doing a fine job, considering where he was picking up from. I’m not saying Cyril didn’t do a good job, he got to an All-Ireland final, but you’re competing with Loughnane all the time. But look at last year, against Cork; Joe Deane got no scoreable free, all the backs were exceptional, just that in the last 10 minutes it didn’t work for them and Cork went on a run.
Do ye follow any other sports, the rugby for example?
Oh I love it. I hate the soccer though.
Who do you follow, Leinster?
I follow Munster. I wouldn’t follow Leinster at all — that’s Dublin, really, isn’t it? I was delighted for them this year, winning the European Cup, they needed that badly, that will keep them going. Munster have a different kind of attitude, and sure ye have young Dowling there now, one of our own, hurled with O’Loughlin Gaels.
Munster are like a GAA team, aren’t they? There’s that honesty about them, it reminds me of hurling and football, where soccer is brutal, I’d get nothing out of it. You don’t see rugby fellas trying to get a man sent off, do you?
I like the way they accept the referee’s decision as well, no messing, ganging around him; just walking away and taking the penalty.
I won’t ask ye who’s going to win tomorrow, I think I know the two answers already!
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