Baker is hooked for good on hurling

For a decade Ollie Baker bestrode the GAA stage, a midfield colossus for Clare during a period of unprecedented success for the Banner county.

Two All-Ireland titles, three Munster crowns, three All Stars, along with county, provincial and national success with his club, St. Joseph’s Doora-Barefield, Baker won almost everything on offer.

Now he’s on the other side of the line as manager of the Offaly team which faces Limerick in a critical Allianz Hurling League game that could well decide where the Midlanders will be playing their hurling next year.

But why are so many from that successful Clare team now involved in management? Apart from Baker’s role, Anthony Daly is with Dublin while Davy Fitzgerald heads his native Clare while several others acted as managers and selectors at various levels.

“It’s at club level also,” Baker points out. “In Doora-Barefield, Jamesie and Seanie (O’Connor and McMahon, two more icons of the period) are both very involved while Fergie Touhy is involved with Clarecastle.

“Everyone is getting involved and putting something back into the game. I think we all realise that only for Ger and Mike and Tony (Loughnane, McNamara, Considine) doing what they did, we wouldn’t have had the success we had. It’s just a natural progression that we would now also want to give something back. The GAA is a huge part of our lives. We’re all still relatively young and that’s the time to get involved, when you still have the energy for it.”

It’s not something that’s unique to Clare either, says Baker.

“A few of us are in the public eye at the moment but a few years ago it was former Offaly players-turned-managers in the limelight and it was the same with the likes of Tipperary and Cork. That’s what makes the GAA unique. When you get involved — no matter where you’re from — you tend to stay involved.

“It’s not as though you say, ‘Well this is a time in my life when I’m going to get involved for a few years, then I’ll park it and move on to something else’. It doesn’t work like that, it gets hold of you, and it doesn’t let go. Wherever you go to live, the first place you’ll go to is down to the local GAA pitch.

“Then you start talking to people, you go to a meeting, and suddenly you have a job and are hooked again! Don’t go to meetings, that’s the advice! It might be just the U8 team but even at that level it’s taken very seriously.”

It’s at that level though, not at the very public inter-county level, that you get to see what the GAA is about. “You see the great work that’s done and it’s happening all in every club on a voluntary level.

The community gets involved which is fantastic to see, and yet so much of that goes unnoticed in the media. Every now and then there might be a burst of publicity, like at the time of the club All-Irelands, but it’s going on in every club and it’s going on all year round.

“There are wonderful initiatives being taken by the GAA, local initiatives that benefit the entire community.

That’s what makes the GAA so good, that’s what makes it such an attractive organisation to be involved with.”

And what of Baker’s current role? How is he enjoying being manager of Offaly?

“Managers have a very simple job — create the atmosphere in which the players can thrive. If they’re good enough then, they win.

“If the players buy into the whole setup it makes the managers job very easy. Where it starts to go wrong is when players go off in different directions, pulling against each other. It’s then the problems start.

” A good manager is one who can rule without conflict. If you have conflict you have issues, if you have issues you have distractions, if you have distractions you’re not focused on what you’re supposed to be doing and then it’s all over. If everyone agrees, if everyone knows where they’re going, you’re going somewhere; the challenge is to get to that stage.”