No Clareman has more Croke Park experience than Enda Coughlan — as a player and a selector the Kilmurry Ibrickane legend goes all the way back to when he was just 18 and starting out on his inter-county career, writes Joe Ó Muircheartaigh, looking ahead to this Saturday’s All-Ireland quarter-final.

“IT’S still only a field at the end of the day,” muses Enda Coughlan when talking about Croke Park, but he quickly qualifies his statement by explaining what makes the place different and how it plays differently.

“You get used to playing on different pitches,” he explains, “and when you’re not used to it, it’s different for a while. I’ve been lucky enough to play there and it’s the feel of it — it seems to play bigger than probably everywhere else.

“There’s a tricky wind coming in there and it’s getting used to it. When you don’t get to play there that often it takes time to settle so the more you get to play there, the better it is.”

Coughlan should know, because he’s coming at Saturday’s All-Ireland quarter-final from the perspective of having been there more times than anyone else in the Clare camp — he’s approached the place from many different angles over the course of a storied football career that started when he was just 18.

That was in 2004 when he played on the Clare team that beat Sligo in the Tommy Murphy Cup final — the forerunner to the Tailteann Cup when Clare bookended a 1-11 to 0-11 win with a lap of honour around Croke Park.

“It was a cup we were playing for,” he remembers, “and when you’re involved in a competition you want to win it.

“For us to win that was big — Clare hadn’t been to Croke Park since 1993 (national league semi-final against Donegal). It was a B competition but it was big for us. Clare were trying to make a breakthrough and that trophy for us was massive at that time.”

Six years later he was the first man behind the Artane Band as captain when Kilmurry Ibrickane contested the All-Ireland Club final against St Gall’s; in 2014 there was a National League Division 4 day out against Tipperary, while two years later it was the Division 3 final against Kildare and the All-Ireland quarter-final against Kerry.

“Every player, whether it’s club or county, they all dream to get to play in Croke Park,” he says. “I was talking to David Tubridy and he’s probably only played there four or five times and he’s played a long number of years for Clare. Everyone loves being there and playing in Croke Park,” he adds.

Now as a selector Coughlan is experiencing it all over again as Clare break new ground as they go. Before this year a championship match there was always just a once-off occasion — the 1917 All-Ireland final, the semi-final in 1992 and the quarter in 2016. One day out, one defeat.

It’s different this year as Clare get to play back-to-back championship games in Croke Park for the first time ever — it’s a huge momentum shifter even before Clare make the journey up the M7, with Coughlan et al looking for more of the same as Clare bid to reach a first All-Ireland semi-final in 30 years.

“We were very disappointed after the Limerick game in Munster,” he recalls. “Any time you lose it’s difficult, but when you lose on penalties it’s something new. The most disappointing thing was that Limerick had 78 per cent shot efficiency and we were down in the 40 and 50s. We had to concentrate on a few things.”

“A lot of good things came up on the stats against Limerick, but that was probably the glaring thing and we tried to get that better. We had to try and build it again but in fairness to the lads they did that when they came back it was just a case of one game at a time. After getting over Meath, it was on to Roscommon and now it’s Derry.”

It goes without saying that Derry represent Clare’s biggest challenge yet — Ulster champions for the first time in 24 years, but even more impressive than that is that they took out All-Ireland champions Tyrone, and then Monaghan and Donegal on the way to that Anglo-Celt Cup success.

“It’s definitely a big ask,” admits Coughlan, “but we are definitely going in with momentum. Their system is a unique system. They’re the best around at it — when he was at Donegal they were the best around at it; they were very good at it in Fermanagh when he was there as well.”

Derry were nine-point victors over Clare in the National League game played in Cusack Park earlier this year — Saturday will see if this can be turned around as they summon the same kind of spirit that won the day against Roscommon.

“You’re going to go to the bitter end,” says Coughlan of the character in the team. “They’ve given a lot of their lives to this. It’s five, six nights every week so when you give that much you stay with it. They put in the hard work since the start of the year. They put their lives on hold for Clare football, so anything they get, they deserve. They work as hard as any other county team.

“Sometimes you need that little break for things to take off, and we got it against Roscommon. It’s down to the last eight teams. If you get any luck on Saturday you don’t know what will happen — you could just take off on a run. It could be our year this year that we take off on a bit of a run.

“We have some top quality players in Clare and they prove that every year so it’s no harm for them to be out there to see what they can do against the big teams. That’s where they want to be and their performance will show that they’re good enough to be there.”

How sweet it would be for everyone of a saffron and blue hue.

But especially for Coughlan — that day he was first behind the Artane Band in Croke Park, Rory Gallagher was also walking behind the same band in the colours of St Gall’s from Belfast.
Gallagher won that day — twelve years on Saturday could be Enda Coughlan’s day.

It would be a great day! Clare’s greatest.