With a member of the Clare team of ’95 currently at the helm of the Waterford senior hurling team, it’s timely to look back on the GAA background he came from.  In the Dungarvan Leader in 1995, my father Ned Power, an All-Ireland Waterford hurler and subject of a forthcoming biography, reflects on the breakthrough achievements of the Clare hurling team 14 years ago.

September 15, 1995

More has been written about Clare over the last week than about previous winners of the Liam McCarthy Cup.  They have captured the whole nation’s attention and the imagination of all hurling lovers by the magnificence of their achievement.  Many people are now preoccupied with trying to understand how a team of ordinary hurlers was transformed into a super-charged irresistable force; how Clare have exorcised all the physiological hang ups and obstacles, the fear of winning as much as the fear of losing.  Let’s ponder the combination of talents, which is the Clare hurling team.

By appointing Ger Loughnane as Manager the County Board ensured that a man of strength, honesty and integrity was in charge, a man too who sought the position.  He was given complete freedom to nominate his helpers in management and he knew whom he needed to pursue the fulfilment his dream – every Clareman’s dream; the Liam McCarthy Cup.  He picked two men Michael McNamara and Tony Considine who were as he said himself “on the same wavelength” as himself.  Translated that meant that all three shared the same vision, agreed on fundamentals, were completely honest and open with one another and that each had his won particular talents in management to offer.  They weren’t his “yesmen”, his puppets to be manipulated, the expendables upon whose shoulders the blame for failure could be laid, men who could be used and aabused as has been the case with many management teams in many counties over the years.  Heights of achievement cannot be reached with yesmen.  A good manager needs very intelligent accomplices if he is to function effectively, not sycophantic morons who swallow his thoughts and ideas without the ability to digest them.  Every worthwhile manager needs the corrective of sound-minded colleagues.  Ger, Michael and Tony were consumed by a passion, a shared passion, which drove them relentlessly on.  Clare would win the All Ireland and those three men knew the magnitude of the effort needed from themselves, form the County Board and form the panel they would choose.

Michael McNamara was a sadistically hard trainer who was determined, like Kevin Heffernan in 1974 with Dublin, to make Clare the fittest team in the country.  Do you know that training for the 1995 championships began on 5 September 1994, a year ago!

Michael’s punishing regime was only for the bravest souls, the most committed men.  Sometimes sessions were timed for 7a.m.  Often sessions lasted two hours.  Just recall for yourself the dreadful weather of last winter and spring.  The hills and muddy fields of Crusheen and Shannon could tell of torture and torment as the essential stamina work was pursued.  How they must have hated the thought of such suffering especially during that most excruiating spell from Christmas to Easter.  During this spell the dark grey aching, misery which was training, was lightened only by the bon-homie and cheerfulness of Tony Considine, a bubbly character who made the hellish punishment a little more bearable.  Behind the levity and craic, however, Tony was shrewd and knowledgeable about hurling, hurlers and team requirements.  His immensely likeable manner and easy sociability served to conceal a man driven by the same demons which drove his two colleagues Ger and Michael.

“It was all about passion”, Ger is reported to have said afterwards, “passion and heart which have been our trademark this season”.  With respect it was about far more than that although without the driving enthusiasm which consumed management and was transmitted to the players the unforgettable deeds of Clare 1995 could not have been accomplished.  As we know there comes a time in every game, big or little, when a team is rocked back on its heels.  Sometimes that happens early in a game (Vienna last week), often it’s later on when the game is perhaps delicately poised.  The winners don’t always dominate from start to finish.  When Cork scored a sickening late goal on Clare last June former Banner representatives would have hung heads and accepted inevitable defeat.  When Galway came within two points of Clare in the All Ireland semi final a crisis point was reached.  Johnny Dooley’s pointed freed 5 minutes from time in the All Ireland final sent Offaly tricolour flags dancing and gave the holders a 2-8 to 0-11 lead as we prepared to hail mighty Offaly and to applaud Clare’s gallantry in defeat.  On all three cases Clare’s stamina, utter self-belief and mental strength lifted them and swept them on to victory.

However efficient the team management no thoughts of glory could be entertained if the squad of players weren’t men of character.  Only lads of great character would sustain a gruelling training schedule over such an extended period.  Only such ment could be infused with the passion of their mentors and not be satisfied with the hurling world’s sympathy or honourable defeat.  Seven of last year’s Munster panel were dropped as the search went on for lads of character, trust and intelligence.  Big, strong Ollie Baker, steady calm imperturbable Brian and Frank Lohan, rangy P.J. O’Connell, indefatigable Jamesie O’Connor are good examples of what were needed.  And the powerful bond which knit the squad together derived from sharing the pain and suffering and bleakness of spartan training sessions.  Playing in a Munster championship or All Ireland game was much easier than one of those McNamara training specials.  When you have scaled Mt. Everest climbing Cruachán is child’s play and the accumulation of layers of resilience, heart and spirit banished negative thoughts and fears and allowed them to express themselves.

I was in Thurles on Saturday last for the annual Hurlers Inter County Golf Competition and, of course, nearly all the talk was about Clare.  Mick Hayes, Noel Pyne, Johnny Callanan, Seamus Durack, Sean Heaslip and Sean Cleary from the Banner were showered with congratulations.  A constant rejoiner from those chaps was: it’s Waterford’s turn now for a break through.  They were giving expression to the thoughts of All Waterford followers.  If Clare who were humiliated in the Munster finals of 1993 and 1994 could overcome such traumatic experiences why not Waterford who are little behind them if at all.

Now is the time for Waterford to take inspiration.  Select a panel of manliness and character.  Lads who have the commitment to undergo the harsh training required to reach the summit, the ambition to aim high and the potential to be top performers.  Let them share the murderous hard work in the conviction that like Loughnane’s men they know they will succeed in their quest for hurling’s ultimate honours.

Heights by great men reached and kept,

Were not attained by sudden flight,

But they while their companions slept,

Were toiling upward in the night.

“My Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power” is out on paperback at the end of November 2009.  Click here for further information, pre-order and excerpt.