'To this day you still have the Lohan Stare. And when he gives it no words are needed'

Brian Lohan may not be anyone’s idea of the identikit 21st century manager or coach. But he has created a team who play in his own imposing image
'To this day you still have the Lohan Stare. And when he gives it no words are needed'

Brian Lohan by Yellowbelly

Today will be a bit of a first both for Tommy Guilfoyle and indeed Clare. Ever since he began playing senior with the county himself nearly 40 years ago as a teenager he’s been there in the flesh for every championship game of theirs, either out there on the field, or on the terraces or in the gantry as a co-commentator for Clare FM. After a heart scare last Sunday night though, he won’t be making the trip to Tipp.

You’ll be glad to know he’s doing fine. 

He’s had the stints put in, the valve unblocked, is back home and already again talking hurling virtually non-stop just like the Tommy so many in the county have known and loved. Fortunately he’s never smoked or drank and has kept in good shape, meaning at 56 he was able to withstand the kind of scare others through the family history haven’t.

Still, he’ll have to take a break from working and driving for the next month while the hardest part will inevitably be staying away from the games for at least that long.

“It’s going to be strange,” he smiles down the phone. “But as a guy from work has told me, ‘Don’t panic. You’re probably not aware that it exists but there’s this thing called the television and you can see the match on it!’”

And so he’ll watch events from Thurles from the novel vantage point of his own bed or couch in Feakle. As someone who played for so long with and within the county and has continued coaching and monitoring the sport for even longer, he offers an excellent viewpoint on this Clare team of Brian Lohan’s. Because that’s precisely what it is. That’s the most striking feature of this team for him. Just how much it is in the image of its manager.

Lohan and Guilfoyle would have had their share of tussles back in their playing days. Lohan’s first two seasons on the senior county panel would have coincided with Guilfoyle’s last two and they’d have been pitted against each other on the edge of the square in training. They continued to rub shoulders on the club scene and Guilfoyle in particular remembers a club game back in ’97, only days after his father died of a heart attack at just 60.

“I’ll never forget it. The game was rearranged for a Friday night in Tulla and this high ball was coming in between Lohan and myself. Of course I ended up hitting him, I might even have knocked off his red helmet. Well it was the worst thing I ever did. After that he was like a man possessed. I could tell just from his body language that he was right thick with me. I was going to myself, ‘Bad move, Tommy. Bad move.’ He never said a word. He didn’t even hit me back. He just growled and glared and dashed out in front for every ball.

“The funny thing was his dad Gus was the same way. I remember about 15 years earlier when Gus was coming towards the end of his career and I was starting out on in mine Feakle played Wolfe Tones in a championship replay in Kilkishin. We were both going out for the ball, all arms and legs; Gus wouldn’t have been the fastest man, certainly not as fast as Brian. Anyway, I ended up accidentally tripping him up with my hurley. Well, he hit the ground like a ton of bricks and when he got up, he was bulling.

“Again, he hardly said a word. It was all in his body language. Whereas Frank [Brian’s brother] was more refined, a courteous type of fella, Brian was more like Gus. In his aggression. Being not that verbal. And in his demeanour. I mean to this day you still have the Lohan Stare. And when he gives it no words are needed. The Stare is enough.”

And in a way that’s what this Clare team are now like. Lohan may not be anyone’s idea of the identikit 21st century manager or coach. You will never have him talking about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs or the values and intricacies of the constraint-led games-based approach. He does not aspire or profess to be a guru or genius in the mould of a Jim Gavin or Paul Kinnerk. He wouldn’t follow in the style of that other beloved Clare manager Colm Collins who would be renowned and admired within the county for his player-centred, almost paternal approach. Even a club team would possibly seek a bit more love than what Lohan tends to provide. But in Guilfoyle’s eyes, Lohan was exactly the kind of manager Clare and especially this group of Clare players needed. While again he’d hardly be hosting or even holding workshops on the topic, he intuitively recognised the importance of identity and for Clare to return to and re-embrace the aggression and even gruffness that is in its DNA.

“He’s instilled the aggression back into Clare’s hurling again. For a long time that had been missing. We’d nearly become the opposite of what Clare were known for in Loughnane’s time and even in [Anthony] Daly’s [managerial tenure]: maybe not the most stylish team but hugely aggressive and physical. During Davy’s time and under Jerry [O’Connor] and Donal [Moloney] as well, we became more sophisticated and tactical and developed probably better technical hurlers, and in fairness we’d success at underage and at senior as well with it. But somewhere along the way we possibly became a nice team to play against. And Lohan would have railed against the idea of that.”

In returning to old values, Lohan has called on the soundings of old friends. He’s been spotted having the occasional lunch with Tony Considine in O’Connor’s in Shannon. And Guilfoyle has little doubt too that Lohan would sometimes seek the counsel of Loughnane himself. The evidence of their conversations are there in how the team battles on the field. And also the siege mentality it’s created off it.

Just like Loughnane was one of the first managers to hold behind-closed-doors training sessions and matches, the current Clare setup puts a huge value on secrecy. What goes on behind closed doors literally stays behind closed doors. Lohan earlier in his reign identified that too many people were accessing the dressing room on match days so to address the issue he’s appointed a de facto doorman, Ciaran O’Neill, a fellow fearsome, no-nonsense fullback from the Clare scene in the 1990s. O’Neill won a hurling All Ireland with Doora-Barefield and a Munster football championship with his county in ’92. After this year’s Munster hurling final, a well-known associate of Clare GAA and a family member tried to enter the dressing room only to be bluntly informed at the door that their VIP privileges did not apply there. As someone who kept Maurice Fitzgerald scoreless in a Munster final, O’Neill was hardly going to flinch at imparting such news.

What makes O’Neill’s appointment all the more curious is that he would have had his share of brushes with the county board; back in 2007 he was a selector to Tony Considine and when their reign was terminated after just one season, O’Neill publicly declared his lack of faith in the competence of the board. But for Lohan such history is almost an asset rather than a liability. For a kitman he could have chosen any of multiple people but instead selected a Niall Romer, a colourful character and highly-outspoken delegate who regularly challenged the secretary and chair of the board.

“There’d be a method to Lohan’s thinkin,” says Guilfoyle. “Brian wanted people that he could not only trust but that would not be afraid of any board official, and even better that some board officials might be afraid of them.

“That’s why there’d be a huge admiration for Lohan within the county. He not only has changed the team on the field. It’s how he’s gone about overcoming all the obstacles off it. But he’s found a way to deal with them. He was instrumental in establishing Club Clare and would liaise very closely with them and its chair, Caroline O’Connor, Jamesie’s wife, because again there’d be that mutual trust and respect.”

That extends to his support team. He was disappointed with how his team faded in his first championship outing against Limerick in 2020 so duly enlisted the services of another colourful character, Limerick man, Michael Carmody as a fitness and speed development coach, dovetailing with Trevor Slattery, a highly respected trainer on the Clare GAA scene for his work with multiple teams and with a background in Crossfit.

None of his selectors were obvious choices.

Ken Ralph from Clarecastle was on the Clare panel during the glory years but was hardly have been one of its best players or biggest names. The other two then are outsiders. Sean Treacy’s name would have been hot in the mid-noughties for his success with Portumna before going in as a selector with Loughnane in Galway. After that experience he wouldn’t have been quite such hot property and his reputation would have been decidedly old-school. But his subsequent work and success with the likes of Kildangan, along with Loughnane’s imprimatur and his similar outlook and personality to Lohan made him a good fit for Clare.

James Moran then would be the lesser known of the three Morans from Limerick, his playing career not having the longevity of Ollie or Niall. But Lohan before he branched out into the auctioneering business would have befriended him during their time working in Bank of Ireland together and enlisted him as a selector in his time over UL.

Between them it works. Again, there’s that trust. Lohan has cut back on a lot of the meetings and video reviews that the players would have been accustomed to during the previous two managements, sensing the players needed such a change at this juncture in their careers, but that’s not saying there’s no tactical or video work done in the setup. 

“Ken and James have been exceptional in their analysis and drawing up game plans,” Lohan himself told the Clare Champion this week. “We rely on our expertise.”

That extends to other areas that shows Lohan, as much as he’s stripped things back to basics, hasn’t been afraid to embrace more modern resources. Anne-Marie Kennedy, who worked extensively with the Dublin footballers during Jim Gavin’s tenure and also has some experience in hurling from her work with Offaly, provides sport psychology support in the Clare setup. She’ll have been needed in recent weeks. Clare and Lohan in particular invested so much in trying to deliver a first Munster championship to the county in 24 years; local media members were taken by just how emotional Lohan was before collecting himself to speak to them after losing that epic encounter.

“Lohan would not be into moral victories,” says Guilfoyle. “And he had the whole setup convinced they were going to beat Limerick. There was absolutely no doubts in their mind that they were going to prevail. So while their performance reflected that and it took Limerick to be as great and physical as they are to edge it, it could be hard for Clare to get up to that pitch again for Wexford. This is a real banana skin for Clare. But there also now seems to be a bar Clare have established in terms of consistency of performance in championship. And it won’t sit right with Brian if they were to go a third straight year under him without reaching an All Ireland semi-final.”

It won’t sit right with any of them. Not with how he has them playing. Not with who they’re playing like and playing for.

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