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”.