No time for sentiment for Banner legends

FOR decades they soldiered side by side in the black-and-white of Clarecastle, for years in the saffron and blue of Clare; Ger O’Loughlin and Anthony Daly, Sparrow and Daler.

Three county senior titles and one Munster club in the 90s with the Magpies, two Munster and All-Ireland titles with Clare in the same glorious period, they have a kinship that has been forged in the shared torture of many a lung-bursting training session, then burnished in the hell-fire heat of championship hurling.

This afternoon in Croke Park they will be in opposite corners as Clare take on Dublin in the 2010 All-Ireland senior hurling championship, O’Loughlin as manager of his native county, Daly in charge of Dublin, but there’ll be no resentment?