Banner boy Brendan’s voyage to the big time

They just have to be given time. We ask that from the county, allow this team to build like the 1995 team that was built from the ashes of 1993 and 1994. Tipperary are a formidable team now, we’re up against it, but any team can be beaten on any day. If you look back over the years, Clare play best when we’re underdogs. Hopefully we can use that to our advantage.”

FIRST of all, let’s get the name straight. He can whistle, he can carry a tune, but he’s not a bugler as in ‘bue-gler’, he doesn’t play reveille every morning or The Last Post every evening, the notes drifting across Lough Derg from his home in Mountshannon to Puckaun and Coolbaun in Tipperary.

So, radio and TV commentators everywhere, he’s Brendan Bugler – that’s Brendan Bug-ler, okay?

“People don’t pronounce rug as ‘rueg’ or hug as ‘hueg’ so why do they pronounce Bug as ‘Bueg?’” he says, with frustrated and irrefutable logic.

They’ve had a few years to get used to the name, have all those who so mispronounce it. Though he’s still just 23, Brendan arrived on the senior scene a couple of years ago, introduced by then manager Tony Considine, and he’s been an ever-present since.

“It was a memorable kind of day,” he says, of his championship debut, “Semplegate, against Cork, in Thurles two years ago.”

Ah yes, shades of the replay of the 1998 Munster final, when Clare were again involved, this was another day of glorious overreaction by the GAA, which itself was prompted by wave after wave of ill-informed public overreaction. In a logistical error, two fired-up teams were allowed to take the pitch together, and in the traditional charge from the tunnel, a few players got entangled.

There were no real blows were struck, certainly not with the hurleys, there wasn’t even a suggestion of injury, and without a match official yet in sight, the players quickly disentangled and sorted themselves out.

Then came the outcry, however, the outraged calls to Joe Duffy and to Des Cahill and a situation that would have merited merely a couple of yellow cards had it been seen by the match officials, became Semplegate, with a full-scale GAA investigation, red cards thrown around like confetti.

So, a terrifying experience for young Brendan, then, all that bloodless mayhem? Hardly. “It was an introduction to the ferocity and the physicality of Munster hurling, and that was before a ball was even thrown in! But it was an enjoyable experience even though we lost. It was nice to get the first championship game under the belt.”

Lining out at midfield that day, and even against a pairing as well-established and respected as Jerry O’Connor and Tom Kenny, Brendan acquitted himself reasonably well and saw out the full 70 minutes.

Since then he has played in a variety of positions, wing-back especially, but on Sunday, when Clare take on Tipperary in the Munster SHC semi-final in Limerick, above any other he would like one shirt – number six.

“Centre-back, that’s my favourite position. I played there for a few years with the University of Limerick and captained them from there. And all the way up along with the club I was centre-back – without doubt it is my favourite position.

“Seánie McMahon was my idol when I was younger; when I was hurling with the lads in national school, most of the others picked Jamsie O’Connor, Anthony Daly, Colin Lynch and those but I picked Seánie.”

Mind you, there was a time when that was different, a time when he was any one of those he mentions above, household names in the era when Clare reigned supreme both in Munster and nationally – the glorious 90s.

“I remember it all well, the boys were my heroes growing up. I wasn’t at the Munster final of 1995 but I was at the All-Ireland. The one that made the greatest impression on me though was the Munster final of 1997, against Tipperary in Cork. I remember going down in the train with my father, an absolutely huge occasion for me. One moment that sticks out, a point that Colin Lynch got; I think it was Declan Ryan threw it out, Colin got it, put it over the bar from about 90 yards, with the crowd on its feet.

“When I got home that evening all I wanted to do was go out the back with my hurley and ball and I was Colin Lynch, I was Ollie Baker, I was Seánie, Jamsie – the whole lot of them.! Great times.”

Things are very different today, as Clare are back to where they were pre-1995, struggling to make an impression even in Munster.

“One similarity though – in size, in the elegant, easy, flowing style, even in temperament, Brendan Bugler could easily pass for his old hero, Seánie McMahon.

In his biography, Raising The Banner, former manager Ger Loughnane famously said of McMahon: “If you had a daughter and she brought Seánie home, you’d be really, really delighted. You’d think, rightly, that here comes the nicest, most sociable, most humble and intelligent person you ever met.”

But, he continues, “If Seánie was in the mafia, he’d be a killer. He’d be a babyface killer.” Well, I don’t know about Seánie McMahon – or Brendan Bugler – in the mafia, and as for being an assassin, well, since both really are as Loughnane describes, gentlemen to the core, that really takes a leap of faith.

On the field, however, there’s no question about their competitiveness, the will to win, the edge that’s needed to survive at this level.

A natural successor, then?

“That’s flattering,” he says. “But I do watch videos of him all the time and try to learn from him.” Certainly Brendan has the dedication required. A secondary school teacher, working on the substitute circuit, dedicated to his job, his daily routine is nevertheless structured around one thing: hurling.

“I’m subbing in Tulla at the moment; if there’s training that evening, everything you do during the day is with that in mind – you’re conscious of what you eat, what you drink, watching what you do all day. Hydration, for example; a lot of people think it’s only down to the day of the match, that you drink three litres of water that day and it’s fine, but it’s not. It’s important that you’re taking that liquid on board all during the week – Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, every day; that way, when you drink on the Sunday, it doesn’t go right through you, it’s there when you need it because you’ve been hydrating all week. It’s a full-time job these days.”

It’s a job that has its first real test Sunday in the Gaelic Grounds. Clare are no-hopers, if all the predictions are to be believed. A desperately disappointing league campaign which saw them relegated to Division 2, has left even the most loyal wondering if the county has slipped back to the bad old days of Clare being the whipping boys of Munster.

“There’s no question we’ve had a poor run, but some of the losses were down to bad luck, a puck here and there. We should have beaten Dublin, we had Cork beaten but they got a goal, put us away. But we’ve learned from that, we’re better than that. When the year is over people will be talking about how we did in the championship, everything in the league will be forgotten. People have to be patient, we have a lot of new guys in big positions. We’re building, even from last year we’ve lost Colin Lynch and Gerry Quinn and they have to be replaced. We have some great guys coming through, especially off the U21 side from last year.

“Certainly there’s some outstanding young talent now in the county – they just have to be given time. We ask that from the county, allow this team to build like the 1995 team that was built from the ashes of 1993 and 1994.

“Tipperary are a formidable team now, we’re up against it, and we realise that, but any team can be beaten on any day. If you look back over the years Clare play best when we’re underdogs. Hopefully we can use that to our advantage.”