“No longer the whipping boys of Munster!”

Nearly a decade as captain of Clare, a spell as manager of the team, many years spent as an analyst and commentator on hurling in print and on television, Anthony Daly has said a few things in his time.

Those seven words, however, spoken in the immediate aftermath of the 1997 Munster senior hurling final win over Tipperary, cup hoisted defiantly in the air, have gone down in Irish sporting history.

Brian O’Meara was togged for Tipp that day but the words passed over his head – he was dealing with his own demons.

This week, in advance of the first Clare/Tipp Munster final meeting since that day, the two met at a halfway house, Limerick Junction, talked about that day, talked also about an event at the opposite end of the scale, Brian’s suspension for the All-Ireland final of 2001, won by Tipperary, after being sent off in the semi-final against Wexford.

Diarmuid O’Flynn: Did you rehearse those lines, or was it off the cuff?

Anthony Daly: “How do you mean rehearsed? Do you think I was standing in front of the mirror for five nights before the game? I never wrote down anything, but something like that was probably playing around in my head if we won. But there was no rehearsal, you’d probably make a balls of it then. And maybe I made a balls of it anyway! I think there’d have been nothing about it except that the following week, when Wexford beat Kilkenny in the Leinster final, Rod Guiney went to make his speech – “Anthony Daly said last week that Clare were no longer the whipping boys of Munster, well we’re no longer the whipping boys of Leinster!”

I was sitting at home, watching, cringing – “Would you shut up, Guiney!”

There hadn’t been a word about it after our game, but then the following week again Clare were playing Cork in the U21 championship on the Wednesday night, Liz Howard (Tipp PRO) had an article in the programme — where did this ‘whipping boys’ come from, it was not a term that hurling people would use.

Next thing the Sunday papers took it up. Ger Loughnane decided he’d defend me with an open letter to the Clare Champion, which also went national – and it went on and on. Jaysus, if John Leahy had scored that late goal in the All-Ireland final, I don’t know how I’d have made the tunnel, every Tipp man in Croke Park was ready to give it to me!

But as far as I was concerned, it had nothing to do with Tipp, or anyone else, I was just talking to our own crowd.

And we WERE the whipping boys. I remember after the 94 Munster final, a noted publican in Ennis, who got the twist (business) from us after all the big games, rang in to Clare FM, complaining. It was about half ten in the morning, I was having a fry, staving off another hour until I went to the pub. I wasn’t after playing too badly, but we were beaten again, 11 points, after being beaten by 18 the previous year. His attitude anyway was, when were Clare going to stop ruining the great day that the Munster final had always been. When were we going to stop ruining that great tradition. And this was a guy we thought was an ally of ours! We had arranged to go to his pub on the Monday at three o’clock for a few pints and then we hear this? So we were the whipping boys, even inside our own county. Then also, Loughnane had made it a huge thing in our heads, to beat Tipp in a Munster final. This was going to be a massive day, we had done a lot in achieving what we had already, but could we go that extra mile and beat Tipp in a Munster final? We were really built up for it, so when it was over, there was that great release. I didn’t think there would be anyone from Tipp left out on that field when spoke. It was all Clare, and that’s who I was talking to.”

DO’F: “Did it bother ye Brian?”

Brian O’Meara: “No, it was never mentioned in the Tipp dressing-room. There are people who need something like that to feed on, they’ll take it and blow it out of context. But I don’t think it was ever an issue for the real hurling people in Tipperary. All I was thinking was, another Munster final lost – that was three at that stage.”

AD: “Crazy, I would never have thought about it like that, I felt all of ye had about 20 medals each!” BO’M: “Well we hadn’t, we lost a lot more than we won. Look at Brendan Cummins. He’s looking for only his second Munster medal tomorrow. Would you believe that?”

DO’F: “When Tipp finally made the breakthrough in Munster in 2001, that must have made missing the All-Ireland final even more disappointing. What did Liam Dunne say when ye were sent off, was he pleading with the referee?”

BO’M: “No, Liam Dunne didn’t say anything. It was still in the first-half, they had just scored to bring it back to a few points. Dunne was standing about five yards behind me, he’d come up with the hurley at full extension, jab me in the side, around the rib-cage because it had been let out that I had an injury there. And he started, dunt, dunt, dunt; every time he did it I felt a dart of pain, me ribs. I was after getting a pain-killing injection to try and get me through the match, but this was getting to me. Eventually I turned around and just flaked him back. Your man came in, the linesman, from Carlow – Aherne – caught the two of us. When Horan (Pat, referee) showed the red card I turned to Dunne – “Now look what you’re after doing.” He never opened his mouth, never said a word.

DO’F: “Have you had any contact with him since?”

BO’M: “No. I still feel hurt over that.”

DO’F: “Did you get a medal?”

BO’M: “I did but it’s not the same thing, you wanted to be playing. But we were much better then than we were in 1997; when I look back on that now, we weren’t ready for Clare at all, the intensity of it. We were in 2001.”

AD: “And yet ye could have beaten us in both games in 1997. And I maintain that we should have beaten ye in 2001. Dickie (Murphy, Wexford referee) was always popular in Clare, we felt he understood us, but he made four decisions against us that day, terrible decisions.”

BO’M: He was trying to make up for 99, the decisions he made against us.

AD: “I have no doubt ye were a better team than us in 2001 though, I don’t think we’d have gone on to win the All-Ireland.”

DO’F: “The Nicky English story, Munster final replay of 1999 in Cork, when Ger Loughnane announced in the Clare dressing-room just before they took the field that he had heard Nicky’s last words to Tipp before they took the field — ‘Kill Wounded Animals’. Did that happen?”

AD: “Fellas maintained they did hear it. But wasn’t it the obvious thing for Nicky to say?

BO’M: “I don’t remember it, but it does sound like the kind of thing Nicky would say. He used that kind of psychological stuff; he had this thing about the hum in the Old Stand in Thurles – ‘Do ye have the balls to stand up after ye hear the ‘hum’ sound in the Old Stand?’ Tipp fans are very critical, and that’s what you hear when things are going wrong – and you can hear it – that hummmm…, when the Tipp crowd are on your back. And when it would happen to you, instead of looking for a hole to hide in, you would react, you would try to hurl.”

DO’F: “Did ye ever mark each other?”

BO’M: “We never started on each other, Tommy (Dunne) would be on Anthony, I’d be on Liam Doyle.”

AD: “I remember in 97 I was on Kevin Tucker in the Munster final, he reddened me – I could never understand why Len Gaynor didn’t have him on me again in the All-Ireland final.”

BO’M: “He didn’t even start that game.”

AD: “No, I was on a fella from Portroe, Liam McGrath, he was taken off at half-time. I was able for him, where Tucker was tricky, well able to score.”

DO’F: “What was Liam Doyle like?”

BO’M: “He was fine, always, not a dirty stroke in him. But that was okay until himself and John Leahy got at it, and then he’d lose the plot. Leahy would drive him nuts. But that was the way Leahy operated he would get under their skin.”

AD: “Ah, we had some good craic along the way. I remember for the Captain’s Table interview of 1995, I was to sit down with Johnny Pilkington (Offaly) in Mullingar. I had no car at the time, hadn’t driven at that stage, so my brother took a half day to drop me down. He went away for a bite to eat while I met up with Johnny and Enda McEvoy, who was conducting the interview. “I presume none of ye two will drink wine,” says Enda. “Well I wouldn’t mind a bottle of red,” says Johnny, “And I’m sure Anthony will give me a hand with it!”

“That was the week before the week of the All-Ireland, and us (in Clare) not touching a drop since the semi-final — we polished the bottle of red! I’d say if anyone had walked in on us, what they’d have been thinking! Johnny was a gas man.”

DO’F: Johnny gets a bad rap though; from all my conversations with the Offaly lads of that time, he was a ferocious man to train, and most of the tales told about him were either exaggerations or fabrications.

AD: “He was a serious athlete, a box to box player who could really cover the ground. But I know what you’re saying, he probably wouldn’t touch a pint for weeks, then have a couple of pints one night, the word gets out, and these things grow legs. Are you still togging Brian?”

BO’M: “Yeah, still playing away with the club (Mullinahone), but I’m beginning to struggle now. The joints, the sciatica, the next morning – I think it’s time to call it a day. I was listening to Eamonn Cregan on the way down here in the Car, on Newstalk, and that’s what he was talking about.”

AD: “I was listening to that too, he was on about when he took over in Limerick, they were getting a bit old. When the corner-back is three yards in front of you to the ball it is time to get out.”

BO’M: “Nicky English said that about Stephen McDonagh (Limerick), went for a ball, McDonagh zoomed out past him, picked the ball, cleared it downfield. “I knew then,” he said, “it was time to go!”

AD: He was a right hardy boy, McDonagh.

BO’M: “Nicky and Fox had a right row after the 96 Munster final, when Limerick beat us in a replay below in Cork. English was there afterwards, “I’m finished, that’s it.” Fox tore into him, “What are you talking about?” – “Ah we’re finished, we’re finished, we have to go, let the youngfellas in.” Fox was older than him but he wasn’t having any of it.”

AD: “It’s hard to let go too though, you want to keep going.”

BO’M: “That was probably the wrong time for Nicky to be bringing it up though, immediately after losing a game like that saying they were finished.”

AD: “I met Pat Hartigan at a Harty game one time, “Are you still playing?” he said to me. “Yerra I’m nearly gone,” I said, ‘I’m only hanging on’. ‘Jesus,’ he said, ‘Keep pulling those togs over your arse as long as you can, you’ll be feeling old long enough! Play on with the junior B’s even, but keep playing.’”