Old friends are best...

DIARMUID O’FLYNN (DO’F): “Francis, you actually recorded a series of firsts in your career?”

FRANCIS LOUGHNANE (FL:): “In 1964 I captained Tipperary to win the U21 championship, that was the first year it was played. In 1971, with Roscrea, I was on the first team to win the All-Ireland club championship and that same year I was on the first All-Star team. I actually won three All-Irelands in 1971 – the club, the inter-county with Tipperary, and the inter-firm with Roscrea Foods. By right I shouldn’t have been playing in that one, I was only pushed into the factory to get on the team. Do you know something, all the competitions that are played at club and at inter-county level – underage division and counties, provincial and club All-Irelands, Oireachtas, National League, Railway Cup, All-Irelands, All-Stars – I’ve won them all, bar one; I never won an All-Ireland minor medal. We were beaten by two points in the final of ‘62 by Kilkenny.”

DO’F: And yourself, Mossie, you’re almost the exact opposite?

MW: I am the opposite; when I was with Waterford we won nothing. I went through some very bad times, and funny enough, I would say that the team we had that time was as good as many teams Waterford had over the years with a lot of fellas as good as anyone on the present team. You had Pat McGrath, Jim Greene, John Galvin, Seamie Hannon, Nicky Cashin who came on afterwards. It was a good side, but Cork and Tipp were very strong also at the time and we couldn’t make the breakthrough.”

DO’F: “The huge Cork wins in the Munster finals of ‘82 and ‘83; Waterford beat good teams to reach those finals, so there was no way there was that gulf – was it a psychological thing?”

MW: “I think it was, certainly we couldn’t get over how big that beating was. We were working as hard as anyone but you were left wondering afterwards – ‘how did this happen? WHY did it happen?’ We just seemed to freeze. Against Cork, that mental block was there. It had started in the Munster semi-final of ‘75; in ‘74 we beat Cork, then lost to Limerick – who were All-Ireland champions – by a point.

“That was the first time I came on the Waterford senior team. We were winning by eight or nine points shortly after half-time and the next thing they turned it around.

“In ‘75 then Cork beat us in the first round in Munster by 22 points. It’s funny, but something like that (loss in ‘74) can change everything. If you could only get a break at all, you can develop from there, and we did have the individuals and should have been able to compete with anyone.

“The present team got that break, and at least now they can compete.”

DO’F: “But is that psychological weakness still there? Kilkenny have now gone ahead of everyone, but for the first six years of the last decade Waterford were more than a match for anyone on their day, but still didn’t win an All-Ireland?”

MW: “There must be something there. Offaly took their chances in 1994 and 1998, Clare took their chance in 1995 and 1997, Wexford took their chance in 1996. Waterford had at least three of those kind of chances but weren’t able to finish it out. I feel myself some of our top players just didn’t perform in Croke Park on those big occasions.

“I think another problem we had was that they didn’t actually play as a team, they were a group of very talented individuals – now, they’re playing as a team.

“You had that nonsense between clubs, Mount Sion and Ballygunner, ‘I won’t pass the ball to you because you won’t pass the ball to me’, and that was always in Waterford hurling. When I was on the team I was based in Limerick (a Garda), but I made every training session in Waterford, even in the winter for the league, because I knew if I didn’t I’d be dropped – that thing was there, Mount Sion were the gods of Waterford hurling, they had the power. I just wouldn’t give them the opportunity to drop me.”

FL: “Speaking about Mount Sion – we were down to play them one year in the Munster club championship in Waterford, and they pulled a bit of a stroke on us. It was one of the worst days ever, rain and wind, and we went up to inspect the field – all muck.

“That was about 12 o’clock, and as far as we were concerned the match was called off, so we headed into town for the dinner we were to have after the match and had a couple of pints with it. The next thing we got word – the match was back on! Oh, it was a right stroke, but lucky enough we got out of it, by the skin of our teeth! Roscrea had a fine team that time, won six county titles (‘68, ‘69, ‘70, ‘72, ‘73, ‘80).

DO’F: “Was there any indication in Tipp after the 1971 All-Ireland that a famine was about to start?”

FL: “No, far from it. The great team of the early 60s, a lot of them retired after Kilkenny beat them in the 1967 final; a few held on until 1968, but after losing that one again, we had to regroup and build a new squad.

“By the time we went up to meet Kilkenny in the All-Ireland final of 1971 we had a fairly serious team, and remember, Kilkenny were still seen as the best team around.

“It was an 80-minute game and we were actually winning comfortably enough but ran out of steam in the last five or six minutes. 5-17 to 5-14 it finished! I thought to myself, ‘I’m in luck now, this team is good for four or five All-Irelands!’ but I never saw another one after that.

“But it was great to beat Kilkenny, we weren’t afraid of them, even with the big reputation they had at the time.”

DO’F: “What about you Mossie, were you ever tempted to just cross the river and play for a more successful club and a more successful county?”

MW: “Not at all, never! When I was based in Limerick that time, I used always come back to play for Ballyduff as well – I even did it when I was transferred to Donegal.

“I remember once I finished a shift at two o’clock on the Saturday, drove down from Donegal, played the match, left home at midnight on the Sunday night to be in Donegal for work at six the following morning – no sleep, straight to work.”

FL: “I remember the year I was captain of Tipperary in 1973 when we were playing Limerick in the Munster final. I was doing the driving to training, a few of the lads travelling with me, but others were driving as well – Len Gaynor, Liam King and a few more. We were getting only four pennies – old pennies – a mile, and the boys got on to me, as captain, to approach the county secretary of the time to look for sixpence a mile.

“In training one night anyway I worked up a bit of courage, went over to Tommy: ‘The lads and myself now, we’d like a few pence extra a mile’ – well, what he didn’t say to me wasn’t worth saying. Unreal! We used to have to keep a record of the miles we were doing and at the end of the year then you’d submit the claim – it was just to go towards paying the tax and insurance. Well, if you gave in 1,000 miles, you might get back for 800, and this went on for a few years – eventually we copped on, and we’d submit 1,200, to get the 1,000!”

DO’F: “Great characters back then?”

FL: “Yes, we had our own tradition of hurling...”

MW: “Yeah, lower the blade!”

FL: “But I think we’ve lost that a bit. Kilkenny were hard men. On an All-Stars trip, I was up in the forwards with Eddie Keher, Pat Henderson was centre-back; Keher was after missing two frees, stood up to take the third one and Henderson shouted up the field – ‘F*** off from that and let Loughnane take it!’

And Keher did go away. They wanted to win so badly...

DO’F: “And if it meant calling over a Tipp man to take the frees, instead of one of your own, they did it?”

FL: “That was it.”

MW: “I came up against Frank Cummins of Kilkenny – Stonewall Jackson. I tried to compete with him in a league semi-final in Thurles one year, sure I only bounced off him, and I’m not a small man. I just wasn’t as physical as him. He was the most honest hurler you ever came across.”

FL: “I remember I hurled on him one day, beyond in Thurles, and he broke my nose.

“He was so big and awkward, shoving out his elbows, and sure he was three or four inches taller than me and caught me with a big elbow and the blood started pumping. I got it stopped anyway, and said to myself – I’ll have to do something about this. Next puckout, Peter O’Sullivan put it down between us, I pulled a small bit early and codded him. In those days you had to let a fella know that he wasn’t going to intimidate you – off he went. You get those times in matches, fellas will try to test you – Jimmy Doyle took some fierce punishment.”

MW: “Was it because ye were small men?”

FL: “I don’t know, but you had to look after yourself anyway. Liam King said to me one day – he was with Lorrha and Roscrea were playing them in a North semi-final, going well – ‘You f***er Loughnane, I’d kill you but you’re coming to my wedding in two weeks!’ And I was, he was getting married. But he was a hard man.

“My nose was broken about 10 times. There was a Dr Roberts in Nenagh, and I’d go there the Monday morning after a match – ‘Not you again!’ he’d say! He’d fix the nose, it would be perfect for a few games, then gone again – I was in with him four or five times in six months. Finally he said to me – ‘Francis, listen to me; I’m going to fix it now, but don’t come back to me anymore until you’re finished hurling and I’ll make a right job of it’ – I never went back to him, and look at me now!”

DO’F: “Is it a better spectacle today?

MW: “The Munster final between Cork and Waterford wasn’t, but you did have some terrific games between those two in the years before that. Galway and Tipp in the quarter-final too saw some lovely hurling. I know you have to win games, but it has to be a spectacle too; if you’re games are good you attract the customers.”

FL: “Okay, it’s a nicer game to watch, the referees are looking after you better than they did in my time – I’d love to play today, a pudding of a game.

“And you know who’d have a super time if they were playing today? Ray Cummins and Tony Doran, guys with super hands – they’d catch everything, have the ball in their hands, it would be either a goal or a penalty. Ray Cummins had a great skill, he’d go up in the air, catch the ball, and by the time he landed he was already turned towards goal.”

DO’F: “Who’s going to win tomorrow?”

MW: “We have some good young players coming through but if it’s a defeat this weekend, that will be a setback. I think though we’ll take Tipperary.”

FL: “It’s 70-plus minutes, and I think the lads who last the pace better will win – we have more ‘legs’. We’ll take it.”