In Focus Waiting for Clare's next generation: Tom Humphries asks former Clare player and manager Ger Loughnane about the problems the Banner county has in developing new talent
In Clare the more things change the more they stay the same. The county goes into yet another championship game tomorrow, yet another joust with Tipp no less, with a half-dozen hoary veterans in the vanguard. The Lohans, Davy Fitz, Jamesie, Seanie Mac, Colin Lynch all seem to have been on board for eternity. Niall Gilligan's vintage is a little lighter but not by much. Even the newer components don't have that shocking freshness about them.
As a county, Clare is a conundrum. After the successes of the 90s, the great waves of delirium and passion, the game is at a crossroads in the county. The men who backboned winning teams are disappearing or burning out slowly. Their replacements aren't battering down the doors. Reaching an All-Ireland final last year was a remarkable achievement in that it put a rosy hue on to cheeks which should have borne a more sickly pallor.
Clare haven't reaped the dividend of the good times yet. The children of the Loughnane revolution are missing. Or are they? Have Clare just been conservative? Is there a generation of fidgety hurlers in the county just waiting their chance to burst into a Munster Championship.
A cursory glance down the rolls of honour suggests there must be something out there. Clare won the first back-door minor All-Ireland in 1997, putting away a Kilkenny team that contained Noel Hickey and Henry Shefflin. Of that Clare team, many (Ken Kennedy, John Reddan, Gordon Malone, Brian McMahon, Gearoid Considine, Conor Earlie) have been called up but nobody has nailed down a senior place.
In St Flannan's the 1990s brought three All-Ireland successes, including two in a row in 1998 and 1999.
A partial list of the players beaten by St Flannan's teams in those two years is interesting. Jimmy Coogan. Eoin Kelly. James Moran. Brian Carroll. All came off the worst. And the big Flannan's names? John Casey of Clarecastle scored 0-7 in the 1997 final. Brian McMahon, Ken Kennedy, Conor Plunkett, Colm Forde were all there.
Tony Carmody and Gerry Quinn have done enough by now to have tenure in the Clare first string but in a county so deficient of choice shouldn't there be more? And who'd be a boy wonder? Andrew Quinn had scarcely begun shaving when he played against St Kieran's of Kilkenny in the 1999 final. St Flannan's won their 13th title that afternoon.
By 2001 Quinn was still a schoolboy but the headline story of the school season was Andrew O'Shaughnessy of St Colman's, who scored 2-5 in the Harty Cup final. Quinn should play tomorrow having dabbled at the edges last summer. In a county with so few attacking options the reluctance to immerse him has again been baffling.
That Clare's young players haven't seized the day is of little surprise to Ger Loughnane. Back before the dawn which Loughnane coaxed out of an unpromising horizon there wasn't too much out there either but things were slightly different.
Clare looked for potential. Sean McMahon had never played under-21 for the county but his potential was recognised and developed. Brian Lohan wasn't a minor for Clare. Again somebody (Loughnane) saw something. That trait of looking for potential rather than underage success should have become a basic tenet of the Clare hurling philosophy Loughnane believes. Instead Clare are at a junction.
"We are in despair," says Loughnane, who still hasn't spotted a bush he'd like to beat around. "The skill deficiency in our young players is so bad that it's unbelievable. One-sided, poor in the air, faults that just aren't being remedied in that period from age 12 to age 19. After 1995 and 1997 and the three Munster titles there was no plan put in to capitalise. Nobody realised that nothing happens by chance or by using the same old formula from 40 years ago."
He points back to the world Clare lived in before 1995 when at least Shannon gave some competition to St Flannan's. Shannon won three under-14 titles on the trot, there were Féile successes and a clutch of good people - Mike McNamara in particular - working at underage level. Players came up with all the basics if not all the medals. At the height of the success there was a chance to secure the future.
"We have had no development squads until last year," says Loughnane. "Even that I worry about. I was invited in to help select the people and launch the thing. I haven't heard a thing from the county board about it since. I talk to players involved and they are disenchanted. Limerick put in a system six or seven years back after two All-Ireland appearances. They did it at the height of the buzz. That's why they have three under-21 All-Irelands."
Loughnane watched most of the most recent Clare under-21 championship. What hair he had left he yanked out in clumps.
"To say the standard was abysmal would be charitable. Especially among forwards. So many scores coming from frees, so many one-sided players. There are three traditional problems in Clare hurling: the slowness of our play, our inability in the air and our one-sidedness. They don't get corrected.
"The dominant clubs at underage level in Clare are those near big centres of population with good picks. An under-15 team from Clarecastle can actually play with a squad full of 15-year-olds, usually the pick of a good bunch, where a rural side will be subbing up players from under-13 or 14 levels. Big enthusiastic teams banging about doing well against smaller sides. The effect is to disguise Clare's vulnerabilities."
Even St Flannan's can't save Clare hurling if the county board won't. Loughnane has pondered the benefits of having one of the nation's primary hurling nurseries on the doorstep. He can see the benefits of course but he's not entirely convinced.
"I'm a bit dubious. I think the good players going in there are well catered for but they come out mollycoddled and with an expectation of winning things. Flannan's concentrate on the Dean Ryan and the Harty Cup which is fine but other aspects of potential and skills development don't get looked after.
"There are a huge number of kids who won't make the Flannan's team and won't be prominent in other places in the county who should be getting the skills down at that age. There are kids with huge potential but we have to bring them in and develop them. Flannan's is about something different."
Time is rolling on. When half your side have All-Ireland medals in their pockets you can decide that the glass is half full. When your rivals' teams are bursting with young fully formed hurlers you can see it as half empty.
Given the holes in Tipp's defence, Clare have a chance tomorrow. If it is grasped Clare will be hoping that it's a Griffin, a Carmody, a Quinn or some other fresh face who does the taking. Then there might actually be a tomorrow.
