ANTHONY DALY LEADS FROM THE FRONT As captain of the Clare Seniors for the last four years Anthony Daly has suffered the slings and arrows of outrages fortune more publicity than most. The decision to re-appoint the same man captain for four years running goes against a well-established national trend and is testament not alone to Daly's excellence as hurler but also to his natural leadership qualities. His high profile constant presence on the Clare team over the last seven years makes it a surprise to hear he is still only 25 - 26 in October and could still be a few years short of his prime as a hurler. A Clare Minor in 1987, he played Under 21 for three years running in 1988, '89 and '90 and has been a Senior since '89. The underage years yielded nothing in the way of success (nor of course did the Senior until this year) but his club, Clarecastle, provided some consolation winning three Senior county titles in '87, '91 and '94. They lost to Tipperary champions Toomevara in the Munster Club semi-final last year by a point. An employee of the Trustee Savings Bank in Ennis, Daly is fairly sanguine about the demands of captaincy, the duties of which include acting as intermediary between players and management when the players are not happy about some situation. Which isn't really a problem under the current regime - nor was it under the previous one - because Ger Loughnane is "a players' man" and so was Len Gaynor before him, he adds. The duties of most captains extend only to the token "few words" in the dressing room before the game and at half time but, says Anthony, "if you're not playing well yourself it's hard to say something to others." That is one of the few strains of the job. But it has its compensations too and none more so for Daly than on July 9th when he lifted the Munster Cup and declared that the famine was over - or words to that effect. Tipp captain Richie Stakelum famously uttered those words in similar circumstances in '87 but, compared to Clare's 63 years in the wilderness, Tipp's 17 year itch was but a mere blip on the radar. It was, says Daly, one of the best days of his life. The relief of finally making the breakthrough was overwhelming, the dead weight of repeated failures finally lifted off their shoulders, cleared from their minds. The pressure to win was so oppressive that Daly would have seriously contemplated retirement if they lost again for the third time running. "If we lost the Munster final I would definitely have considered not playing again. I had visions of Jimmy Magee asking what captain lost three Munster finals in a row." It sounds funny but Anthony Daly wasn't joking. Ironically, he wouldn't have been contemplating a Munster final against Limerick were it not for that extraordinary finale against Cork in the semi-final when, having come with a late surge to claw back a five point deficit and go one ahead, Cork did what Cork always do and banged in a goal as time ran out. Anthony thought it was all over. "I certainly thought when they got that goal so late in the game we were gone. It was classic Cork to get that goal but we did a Cork on them and went down the other end and got a goal. People were saying our goal was just s fluke but theirs was just as flukey." Asked where the team's new-found resilience has come from this year Anthony, like Jamesie O'Connor, finds it difficult to pinpoint exactly the factors behind it. It seems clear however that the two heavy Munster final defeats were influential. They absorbed the lessons handed out to them in both games and came back stronger for having suffered in them. They also learned how to better handle the big day from those two occasions. "It's experience in the system. In the previous two Munster finals we got caught up in the crowd and the occasion and all the hype. This year we forgot about the crowds and stayed focussed." Daly believes that the greatest single factor this year was the emergence of new players, with good attitudes. Fellows like Fergal Hegarty, Frank Lohan, Ollie Baker, Conor Clancy and Michael O'Halloran. "They're good solid individuals. They're all winners, they see no one better." The Munster final was of course special but such was their determination not to let it slip that they refused to relax despite their ever lengthening leads as the game went into the last quarter. "I was very conscious of what happened to Limerick against Offaly so I just kept thinking about the next ball. We were determined to stay focussed right up to the last ball. It was only when one of the Limerick lads turned round and said 'Fair play to ye' that I realised we had it. Then all hell broke loose. It took a long time to get from the pitch to the podium!" No one would have been surprised if they had celebrated excessively had left any further ambitions behind in the bars of Clare. But this is a mature, ambitious team that takes itself very seriously and they knuckled down to the grind five days after the final. They had made up their minds to go to Croke Park to win. "We wanted to go to Croke Park and do well. We tool it seriously. In a way it was nice going to Dublin because the pressure was off. There was a certain freedom about it. We were very relaxed, we had a nice balance between being relaxed and nervous. We wanted to enjoy the occasion but we wanted to stay focussed as well." Anthony had played in Croke Park four times before but the atmosphere on this occasion was momentous, unforgettable. "Running out onto Croke Park that day was unbelievable, very special. You'd take it to your grave," recalls Anthony. But they took it all in with blinkers on: it's back to that word again - focussed, tunnel vision. Having showed that level of discipline and concentration in the All-Ireland semi-final, it is probably safe to say they'll do it again in the final. Many pundits wondered how they would react to the intimidating stage that is Croke Park but they came through it like veterans. And besides, as Johnny Clifford says elsewhere in this issue, gone are the days when teams were afraid to play in Croke Park. And so, to Offaly. "They are a great team. They're the champions, the team everyone has to beat, but we're the only team left in the country that can beat them. They're a brilliant level of team work, I mean, having three brothers on the one team is a huge advantage, the way they find each other, their understanding - and their backs are tremendous." What about the perception that Offaly are a much more skilled team and that Clare are basically a fit team of runners? "Yeah, we're a bit cheesed off with that. This idea that Offaly are a more skilled team and we're only athletes, footballers playing hurling. I think that's a bit overdone at this stage. If you try and tell me that Offaly have a better player than Jamesie O'Connor or a better fullback than Brian Lohan, or a more natural forward than Sparrow, then I would argue with you. "All this talk about fitness, a lot of it is psychological. I mean, why not be as fit as you can? If it can be an advantage why not use it? We certainly are in good shape but Eamonn Cregan will have Offaly flying too. They wiped Kilkenny off the field so they must be in great shape too." It's a perception of Clare that has taken hold nationwide and is undoubtedly much too black and white a view. In the grey areas between, it can be argued that Offaly also have a high level of fitness and that Clare have a high degree of skill. But Clare trainer Ger Loughnane is responsible to a fair degree for this fitness theme and it does seem that he has brought Clare to levels of fitness not previously attained by any hurling team. His influence has of course been profound on the team and there is no doubt but that he is integral to Clare's success. Form the array of qualities he has brought to the squad, Anthony singles out his ability as a coach. "He's a great coach, the best man I ever saw to take a training session. Everything is done at speed in his sessions, you'd be coming off the field 'flah'd'. But doin everything at speed in '93. They just wiped us off the field after 15 minutes in terms of pure speed. It was a great eye opener for us in terms of how fast you have to opperate." It's taken them a few years but they have learned to operate at this level and are more and more comfortable at it. Sunday's game will be played at breakneck speed with just fractions of seconds available to each player to do what he wants to do. Daly has been there and done it, however, and he'll do better than survive. The speeches can come later Taken from Hogan Stand Magazine 1st September, 1995 Tweet

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