From Babs Keating to Davy Fitz: Ranking hurling’s most influential players turned managers
Anthony Daly, Ger Loughnane, Nicky English, Eamonn Cregan, Brian Cody, Jimmy Barry-Murphy.
If you could combine an individual’s playing career with his coaching one, whose would be the most outstanding? Who would compromise your greatest hurling composites?
That’s what we’ve done here, after picking and ranking football’s top 15 recently.
Again, some big names miss out, primarily because they hadn’t enough experience or exposure of coaching or managing for an extensive period of time.
Christy Ring was given much consideration for how vital a role he played as a mentor – in every sense of the term – to the three-in-a-row Cork team of the late ‘70s and others, but ultimately he would have needed more time on the field leading sessions and teams to make it over (even more) worthy candidates. Similarly Henry Shefflin, another member of the players’ Mount Rushmore, hasn’t yet done enough as a coach.
Conversely, the lack of a high-level playing career eliminated some outstanding coaches and managers of the modern era like Cyril Farrell and Dermot Healy. Even John Kiely, Liam Griffin, Johnny Clifford, Micheál O’Donoghue and Derek McGrath, who all played a few years for their county, didn’t make it because their candidacy was lopsided.
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At least when you compare it to the following…
The only figure here who didn’t coach a team to an All-Ireland but still had to be included for being not just the man who declared that Clare were no longer the whipping boys of Munster but seeing to it that Dublin were no longer the whipping boys of Leinster; nearly as impressive as captaining Clare to their first Munster title in 63 years and their first All-Ireland in 81 was inspiring Dublin to their first league in 72 years and their first Leinster in 52 – Bob O’Keeffe had also been a missing person for far too long. An exceptional leader of men.
Remarkably still has claim to be Limerick’s greatest post-Mackey player. Often cut an irritable, frustrated figure as a coach, particularly during his three disappointing stints over his native county, but remained a profound influence, helping Jamie Wall kickstart the Mary I revolution, as well as presiding over Offaly at their apex.
Will feel he underachieved as a player despite – or even because of – winning an All-Star at 19, but that realisation has driven him to get the most out of his players and himself as a coach. Oversaw possibly the best turnaround All-Ireland win ever in every sense: six points down at half-time, fifth in Munster the year before. Along with the league won in Waterford and the three underage All-Irelands with Tipp, he’s making a case to be the second-best manager of the Kiely era.
Another who crammed a lot into a rather short-lived inter-county managerial career, including a badly-needed All-Ireland. In English’s case it only enhanced the legend he’d formed as a player. Even before he helped end the Famine he’d won three All-Stars and five Fitzgibbons, then added another three All-Stars to go with five Munsters and two All-Irelands.
Probably the main reason why we haven’t gone with a goalkeeper-to-corner forward format here; how could we leave out him or Davy? As a player he won four All-Irelands as a starter, keeping not just the ball out but Noel Skehan out of the team; then as a coach led the county to back-to-back All-Irelands in the early ‘90s.
Had the most modest playing career of anyone else on this list, though there’s an honour in that too for how he persevered to finally break into the Tipp team – and play in an All-Ireland final – at 27. As a manager he was the 21st century prototype, knowing when to dictate and when to delegate; one of his gifts to the game was his recruitment and championing of his successors and eventual predecessors Eamon O’Shea and Michael Ryan. His reward in return were All-Ireland final wins over Kilkenny teams that no one thought could be beaten, or at least by Tipp.
Tony Kelly might have got it slightly wrong in his brilliantly-improvised 2024 All-Ireland winning acceptance speech: Loughnane will always be the Father from whom all stems but that still makes Lohan the son of God. As a player he personified the ruthlessness and resilience of that Clare team and their manager while as a coach himself, after serving his apprenticeship on the Fitzgibbon and club circuit, he replanted those qualities into the Clare team and psyche. Is it better to be loved or feared? In Clare, Lohan is both.
As a centre-back he was so good and hardy he kept his brother Ger off the Kilkenny team of the century. Then immediately upon finishing up a playing career that included five All-Irelands, he took over the training of the team, leading to further September triumphs in ’79, ’82 and ’83. An understated leader, he continued to serve as his club’s county board delegate up to last year.
Maybe his magic has worn off but for 30 consecutive years he was a compelling hurling figure. If he doesn’t bury that 21-yard free when Clare were stuttering along in the first half of the 1995 Munster final, do we ever hear what Anthony Daly sounds like? As a coach he continued as something of a breakthrough specialist, inspiring LIT’s first Fitzgibbon, Waterford’s first All-Ireland final appearance in 45 years, Clare’s first Liam MacCarthy Cup win in 16 years and Wexford’s only Leinster of the past 21 years.
The most universally loved Cork sportsperson of all because of his class. As a hurler, footballer, coach, man, in victory and defeat, as most recently evident by how he dealt with the latter of those imposters upon his beloved Barrs losing an epic Munster football final to Dingle. The ignominy of ’96 may have temporarily rattled that relationship with the Cork public but that darkest hour only made ’99 all the brighter. Without him there is no ’73, no three-in-a-row, no Centenary All-Ireland, no party in 1999.
The only one here never to compete in an All-Ireland as a player and yet here he is, second only to an old colleague from St Pat’s Training College. Because realise this: Loughnane the player was as good and ferociously competitive and defiant as he was a manager. His two All-Stars and two league titles as much as those two heart-breaking Munster final losses to Cork would shape those two All-Irelands he’d win as a manager.
In his autobiography that was released in 2009 just weeks after he’d overseen the four in a row, it takes until the 25th chapter to touch upon his inter-county playing career. Even after that the back-to-back All-Ireland triumphs of ’82 and ’83 in which he tied up Ray Cummins and JBM are barely mentioned. That’s just how much his managerial career towers over everything and everyone. But add it all up – the three Celtic Crosses he won as a player to go with the 11 he presided over as a manager – and it’s more than anyone in either code, even Micko (four as a player, eight as a manager).
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