A NEAR perfect hurling year for Ger Loughnane was rounded off with Feakle’s victory on Bank Holiday Monday.

“It couldn’t have been a better year because Clare won the All Ireland, Feakle won the senior championship after 36 years and Wolfe Tones won the intermediate, all teams that I was associated with made major breakthroughs this year,” he says.

While he will forever be remembered for the All Ireland wins in the 1990s, it seems he almost takes more satisfaction from watching his favourite sides winning now that he is a supporter. “It’s one thing winning when you’re involved yourself as a player or manager, it’s even more satisfying when you see it continuing on. What is the purpose of winning really? It’s not just a short-term thing, it’s ensuring the thing continues on. A lot of the lads I played with in Feakle brought on these players up along through underage and then they win. You’ll see that those fellas who won on Sunday, in time they will bring on the next generation. It’s the same with Clare, a lot of the fellas who won the All Ireland will be coaches or managers, maybe some of them will be county coaches. That’s how the GAA survives and how it thrives, one generation that has won inspiring the next generation to win.”

Loughnane will be back in Cusack Park this weekend as manager of the Clare All Stars team that play Clare in a fundraising match for the All Ireland winner’s holiday fund on Sunday at 1pm.

While he didn’t pick the team, he feels those who did made good selections. “Do you know what, the team they picked is a good team. I thought they did a good job, you could argue with one or two, but that’s always the way with an All Star team, either at local or national level it’s the same.”

He is fairly familiar with his charges for this weekend, although he mightn’t recognise some of them on the street. “I’d have seen them all play at club level and they’ve nearly all played at county level underage so I’d have seen them all, but I wouldn’t know them. Even to see them, with helmets you wouldn’t even recognise a well known hurler if you saw them without the helmet. They’ve become more recognisable by their helmets and body language than by their faces. It’s a flaw in the GAA really, people would struggle to be familiar with the best players. Take the Limerick team, if a lot of those walked down O’Connell Street in Ennis, how many would be recognised and they have five All Irelands.”

The holiday after winning an All Ireland is a career highlight for many players, but it takes a major fundraising effort, says Loughnane, and Sunday’s match will be the last major fundraiser for the upcoming Clare trip. “The biggest job, the biggest headache after the All Ireland, is raising funds for the holiday. We were lucky back in our time we had John Callinan, Seamus Hayes and Gerry Diamond, we had them as a fundraising committee and they did fantastic work. We had an advantage in that we won the Munster finals and they were in place at that time, so by the time we won the All Ireland they were well into fundraising. But even at that players had to go out and sell photographs, they had to go all over the country to functions to raise money. Clare had such a busy year this year, eight championship matches, a league final; and by the time it was over I don’t know how Brian Lohan and the players had the energy for it.”

As well as being a fundraiser, he says Sunday is a great acknowledgement for the players picked on the club All Star side. “There probably should be an annual local All Stars. Some counties have it, Dublin especially. It is a big honour to be picked on that team after the championship, especially for fellas who don’t play intercounty. It’s something they’ll look back on. And it’s fitting they should have a game together.”

Loughnane feels that a lot of the Clare players didn’t perform to their potential during this year’s county championship, having been tired from a glorious but gruelling intercounty season. “The county scene is so severe and it drains players so much that very few of them have much left when it comes to the club championship. Eight championship games is a massive drain on players. When you win the All Ireland, and all that goes on afterwards, that’s so draining, people don’t realise it, but it’s really, really draining. Clare had such a difficult campaign, a brilliant campaign but a difficult one, and it’s reflected on the All Star team, I don’t think the county players were at their very best.”

However he points out that Feakle gave plenty to the Clare cause, but still took the Canon Hamilton. “There is collateral damage from winning the All Ireland there’s no doubt about it, but Feakle had three fellas involved in that campaign and they still won the championship. It is just terrific that in the year Clare win the All Ireland Feakle win the championship and win it by beating Sixmilebridge who have been the kingpins of Clare club hurling over the last 30 years.”

Loughnane feels that a team holiday is vital for a successful side, and he expects the Clare players will start thinking about winning the 2025 Munster championship while they are away. “First of all the holiday is a rest, going away from all of the demands that are on players after winning the All Ireland. And there are huge demands to go here and there, which is lovely and it’s good for the players, especially the younger players. It’s good for the people they bring the cup to, but it’s also good for the players themselves to realise how much they are admired and appreciated by the public and it gives them an incentive to make an even better effort the following year but they need a break from it. And the holiday gives them a break.

“When they are away, groups will be coming together and after a while they will be thinking of next year and planning among themselves of what their big target will be. We all hope their big target will be the Munster Championship, that’s the big gap we haven’t closed.I imagine that will be a big ambition for those players and that’ll be something that’ll be discussed while they are away on holidays. In between other activities, shall we say!” he laughs.

While Sunday will be a novel occasion, he will want the Club All Stars to take it as seriously as is possible in the circumstances. “We’ll make it as competitive as we possibly can to entertain the crowd. The worst thing you can do in a game like that is go out casually, that’s no good. We’ll make it competitive and I hope it’ll be an enjoyable occasion for everyone.”

Clare manager Brian Lohan is also looking forward to the his team’s last game of a fantastic year. “It’s a great opportunity for all the players, both those in the club All Stars selection and our own panel to have a good game and we’re looking forward to it. Hopefully it will be a good spectacle and we’ll see how it goes.

“Hopefully the weather will be fine, it’ll be an opportunity for people to come and support the team, get pictures taken and meet the players. It should be great.”

He said he enjoyed the club championship and will be looking at adding to his squad. “It was a good club championship. Obviously all of the players had that shop window to perform with their clubs at senior level and at intermediate and junior, to try and make an impression and to move forward with their hurling career, put themselves out there and bring themselves to the attention of the selectors. It’s a great time for Clare hurling and every year the club championship shows up a couple of players that have done the work, improved and when we see that we like to bring people in, if they’re working hard and they’re getting better, we like to bring them in.

“The group that were there in 2024 were super, won an awful lot of matches and performed very well in big games. But things move on and 2024 was 2024, everyone is looking to 2025 now, they’ll want to make an impression, get on the team or on the panel for 2025 and it’s our job to pick that panel and that’s what we’ll be doing.”

Fourteen Clare players are in with a chance of winning an All Star this Friday night, and Lohan wishes them well, while feeling Cathal Malone is very unlucky. “We have 14 guys shortlisted, which means one guy wasn’t shortlisted, and Cathal Malone is one of the first guys we put on our team sheet for every single game that we play. Obviously the people that pick the All Stars don’t share our value on Cathal, but it’s a great reward for all of the guys who have been nominated, it’s a great place to be and hopefully we’ll have a number of All Stars given the year that the lads have put down.”

He praised Feakle following their victory on Monday. “It was a good tough game. Conditions really suited Feakle and they showed great desire, great will, great energy and great spirit as well. They won a great county final, it’s great for them and more luck to them in the Munster Club.”

Lohan was also very pleased with Wolfe Tones’ return to the senior ranks. “Absolutely. At the start of the year there was pressure on them to win that intermediate championship and get back up to senior. These things are hard to do, it’s hard to win championships. They did what was expected of them so well done to them and it was great to win the intermediate and junior football championships in addition to that, it’s great for the club.”