Ger Loughnane: Brian Cody will trump the lot as hurling’s greatest figure

In college they were teammates. Even friends. Then, for a while, things were tetchy enough.

In 1999, after an All-Ireland semi-final, Brian Cody told the Clare dressing room and journalists standing around that Ger Loughnane was a figure of admiration and inspiration for him.

By 2007, though, after Loughnane claimed Kilkenny played right on the edge, Cody made little secret he felt Loughnane had gone beyond it, on several fronts, dismissing the then Galway boss as “that lunatic from Clare”.

Now, how are the pair of them?

“Listen, great,” says Loughnane. “Last time we met was in Tommy Walsh’s [bash] down in Kilkenny, while last year when we had that [Cancer Challenge] charity event here in Clare, Brian came down to it. I get on great with him. I admire him so much. When you look at the history of hurling, different people represent different eras. There was the era of Mackey, then Ring, onto Jimmy Doyle and then Eddie Keher, DJ, Henry Shefflin.

“But I think the man who will trump them all — even Ring — will be Brian Cody. If you look at all the great players during the Premiership era, who is the personality that trumps the whole lot? [Alex] Ferguson. I think Cody will have the same place in hurling.”