'The greatest hurling ever played is being played now'

HE NEVER really went away.

He popped up as a media pundit but you knew he wanted to be looking at prospects, consulting selectors, making switches. Now Ger Loughnane is back where he belongs. Striding up and down the sideline.

This time it’s with Galway, not Clare. But as the man himself says, that was the crucial difference.

“It’s brilliant, it’s given me a new lease of life. Going to a new county was the key thing — meeting new people, seeing their problems, that reinvigorates you, and ironing out the problems in Galway’s play. The level of enthusiasm has been mighty, and that’s all you can ask.”

The setting isn’t all that’s changed. With Clare, Loughnane did all the coaching, whereas Sean Treacy and Louis Mulqueen share the duties in Galway. The result is that each energises the other, says Loughnane.

“You come home from training in great form. You know you’re enjoying it.”

He doesn’t shy away from comparing his old team to Galway.

“I’d say Galway are a bit behind where Clare were when I took over that time. Clare had played in two Munster finals before 1995, they’d won big matches. There was no back door that time but if there had been, they’d probably have gotten to an All-Ireland final or semi-final. At least Clare were winning matches in Munster that time, something they haven’t been doing for six or seven years. They were badly beaten in those Munster finals but at least they had very good experience and you could see where the cornerstones of the team were.

“The advantage I had then was that I’d been a selector in ‘92 and ‘94, so I knew the players’ strengths and weaknesses. I was ahead a bit. Going to Galway you’d always hear about the mighty talent there, and Cyril Farrell saying they could field two teams of equal strength. They wouldn’t have two teams of equal strength! One team of real strength is the thing.”

Loughnane assumed that Galway players who’d won minor and U21 All-Irelands would have all the skills of the game. But when he wondered why they hadn’t won high-intensity games in the last few years he decided it was because they didn’t have the skills to cope.

“Mentally there’s nothing wrong with Galway players, numerous players on the team will develop as great players. But they’ve won minor and U21 medals without perfecting the skills of the game — like Cork and Kilkenny do — so now you’re trying to make up ground and develop skills that should have been developed when they were 16, 17, and be effective at the same time.

“During the league we had no hurling done so you could see the deficiencies there. Now we’ve had two or three months to work on those, but you’d love four or five months to work on them, to get them to the level you’d really want. Still, we’ve made good progress and we have the kernel of a really good team. Combining the younger fellas with the lads who are already there … I feel when summer comes we’ll have an effective team.”

They’ll have to be effective without teenage prodigy Joe Canning, however. And his brother, Ollie. Loughnane fields that ball immediately.

“The first day I came in I knew we’d be without him — I knew it the first time I spoke to Ollie (Canning). Basically it’s a fall-out from the county final last year, there’s no point in beating around the bush. The Cannings are sour over what happened, while the other Portumna players feel there was an injustice done but want to give their best effort for Galway.

“But where would you play Joe right now if you had him? He’s not ready for the Noel Hickeys and Stephen Luceys of this world, they’d rough him up and throw him out the gate. He’s not ready — but at least he’d be learning if he was in with us. We’ve brought in a few lads and the first few nights they didn’t know where they were, but after a while they got their feet. If Joe were with us he’d be keeping his fitness up and serving his apprenticeship with no pressure on him.

“It has never been an issue, he’s never been mentioned, and if he was on the panel I couldn’t see him being on the team. It takes time to cope with tough full- and corner-backs. So that’s not a factor. I think the loss is to himself.”

In the here and now, Loughnane has other challenges, such as tactical innovation. “Look at what happened in football. It became very tactical a few years ago, and now that’s happening in hurling. We all saw Kilkenny compress the play in last year’s All-Ireland final into the middle of the field to close Cork down. It was a brilliant tactical move, though it wasn’t the first time it was done. With Clare we played three midfielders one day against Tipperary in Pairc Uí Chaoimh. Galway beat Kilkenny 20 years ago doing the same thing.

“But now it’s becoming more commonplace, and managers need outfield players to be able to play in several positions. Maybe not the centre-back, but forwards should be able to play every forward position, and midfield as well. The future for hurling has started with big tactical manoeuvring.

“Cork’s use of their two midfielders was the start of it, we saw Brian Cody counteract that . . . Kevin Tobin came out to midfield for Limerick against Tipp in the third game and the Tipp selectors just stared out at him for 20 minutes. It’s exciting for everyone and a challenge to managers. It’s the way it should go because hurling was very static and predictable tactically for a long time.

“For years you had ground hurling, and doubling on the air, but you never knew where the ball was going to go. Now it’s about playing the percentages. All ball games are like that. The All Blacks don’t boot the ball anywhere.”

THAT doesn’t mean there’s a drop in quality. Loughnane is unequivocal about standards in the modern era. “The greatest hurling ever played is being played now. Go back to the Munster final in 2004, Cork and Waterford. The ’90s were great, you had high-class games and more counties involved, but Cork and Kilkenny have moved it on to another level. It’s more intellectual now. It’s more tactical.

“One feature has been the ability of hurlers to win ball out of the air. It’s a skill that’s out of this world. It was never perfected as well as it is now — you have lads flaking on the ball and a small man like Tommy Walsh can reach up and come away with it. It’s phenomenal.

“When hurling is played as it is between Cork and Waterford the last time … I thought the Cork midfielders and forwards gave one of the greatest displays of combined play I’ve seen. It combined the best elements of their three coaches. Donal O’Grady’s brilliant coaching brought it to a new level by going back to basics, with hooking and blocking; you had the Newtown influence, the support and teamwork. Then you had slightly more direct play — Gerald’s influence. The end product was mesmerising — though, granted, the Cork backs weren’t great that day.

“Waterford’s game is more forceful. There’s a lot of skill, a lot of aerial power and running at the defence. If you took Kilkenny, Cork and Waterford, that’s at a higher plane to anything I’ve ever seen. Maybe hurling was better before I came along, I don’t know, but video evidence wouldn’t support that.”

To bolster his case, he gives an example of how Kilkenny are always thinking of something new.

“They were always the masters at catching the ball, but now Kilkenny players can deflect the ball in mid-air on to an approaching player, in one movement, without catching the ball. It’s fantastic.”

His admiration for Kilkenny doesn’t end there — he’s a particular fan of Richie Power and Richie Hogan — though he’s not so sure whether it’s a good idea for Galway to go into Leinster (“Hard to know,” he says). It’s a rare moment of indecision. After all, we also associate the Clareman with the galvanising summer of 1998, and the summer-long soap opera he and his side were wrapped up in. It gives him a unique perspective on the Cork-Clare saga in May.

“If I were in that position again — 1998 — I’d get rid of it as fast as possible and get on with the hurling. I’d keep it quiet and keep the anger within, taking it out on the opposition next time out.

“The longer it’s in the public domain the more damage it does, because people take sides and the thing becomes polarised. If you keep the head down and keep the anger within the team it’s better — especially for the Cork-Clare thing, because you still had the qualifiers.

“But what that whole thing showed was that Cork would have been better if Clare had beaten them. Tom Kenny and Niall McCarthy mightn’t have been injured the next day out and Cork would have been fresh going into the qualifiers.

“That’s the one flaw in the Munster championship. Limerick and Waterford avoided the qualifiers and can have a cut off the Munster final. But the flaw is that first-round game. It’s only a matter of time before some team says ‘The Munster championship is great, but . . .’ That would be the first crack in the whole thing, and it’d be a shame if it went like that.

“You can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. The Munster hurling championship is the cornerstone. Not that there isn’t great work going on elsewhere, because there is, in places like Antrim and Dublin. Castleknock won the Féile this year. When I taught in Castleknock years ago a hurley would have died of loneliness there.”

Perhaps. If he’d stayed teaching in Castleknock, maybe they’d have picked up a Féile title a lot earlier. Either way, he’s back.