Louis Mulqueen celebrating Liam Mellows county senior triumph in Galway. Tommy Dickson / INPHO
Tommy Dickson / INPHO / INPHO
LOUIS MULQUEEN HAD a front-row view for his native Clare’s glory under the Saturday night lights in 2013.
As one of the assistants to Davy Fitzgerald plotting the Banner backdoor route that culminated on a joyous note in late September, he savoured that moment.
And yet a Galway club breakthrough on the first Sunday of last December was unlike anything he had witnessed before.
The Galway senior hurling arena is a bearpit that has produced six different champions since 2010.
But for Liam Mellows from the city to be the last team standing was not the final act envisaged in many hurling scripts out west in 2017.
Still they belied their position as a club contesting a first county final in 47 years by taking down a Gort side who were featuring in their fourth decider since 2011.
“The outpouring of emotions when they won the county final on the pitch that day, I’ll never forget it.
“I was involved in 2013 with Clare with the buntings and the tinsel coming down in Croke Park. But this was really touching.
“It was families, it was young and old, people crying on the pitch. They never saw this coming and they were appreciative of what you’d done for them.”
Tommy Dickson / INPHO
Tommy Dickson / INPHO / INPHO
In the winter of 2016 the Liam Mellows brain trust planned for the coming year and zoned in on their target. They wanted to recruit the principal of Rice College in Ennis as they sought to tap into his hurling knowledge.
The project intrigued Mulqueen.
“The boys came down to me a couple of times and I accepted the challenge. They told me they were the 11th best team in Galway when I started and to me that was motivation to try and improve. We ended up as team number one which was good.
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“They’re a really good club, very well organised. The officers involved are excellent. It’s really impressed me, the people there.
“I’m around 35 years now with hurling teams. What I liked about this was I was able to get good people working with me in the club. They’re very progressive and well structured. They have good business people behind them that are Mellows to the core. The Mellows network that is there saw people all over the world send good wishes to them.
“Some of it was about trying to improve their confidence levels. They’d been in two or three relegation battles, they had lost two U21 finals and minor finals in the past. It was just trying to get the mindsets right and get them playing to their potential.
“There’s around 12 of the panel U21. There’s a very young age profile there. What I tried to work on as well was to speed up their game a little bit because it was a bit pedantic in the way it was. We’ve worked hard on that all year.”
It has propelled them to the bracket of the current top four teams in Ireland. They will pit themselves today against a Cuala side who reigned in Croke Park on St Patrick’s Day last and are unbeaten on the championship road since the 2015 Leinster final against Oulart-the-Ballagh.
For Mulqueen it is the latest contest in his hurling coaching adventure that rolled on and on. He started out hurling for Éire Óg, following a well-worn local path of playing in the Harty Cup with St Flannan’s before bounding on to play U21 hurling and football with Clare.
Then he was struck down, his player career brought to an abrupt halt.
“I was a PE teacher and I picked up a stupid injury doing gymnastics with kids one day. I reefed my ribs off my breast bone in my chest.
“I was with Dr Con O’Brien there in Blackrock Clinic for months trying to get that repaired. I tried to get back at hurling after that to a point but when you went to hit a ball, the muscles would swell up. I stopped around 26 or 27 then, I couldn’t play much more.”
His love for hurling never deserted him and he switched his focus to coaching. Roles with Clare underage teams were the catalyst for spells with senior teams. He worked during the Len Gaynor and Cyril Lyons eras in Clare. He followed Ger Loughnane to Galway. When Davy took over in Clare, he turned to Mulqueen to help him.
And away from the elite county stage, he enjoyed a period of glittering success with St Joseph’s Doora Barefield. They reigned in Clare in 1998, 1999 and 2001. They triumphed in Munster in 1998 and 1999.
In March 1999 they captured the All-Ireland by blitzing Wexford’s Rathnure and only a goalscoring spree by Galway’s Athenry prevented them from retaining that trophy twelve months later.
Jamesie O'Connor in action for St Joseph's Doora-Barefield against Wexford's Rathnure. Lorraine O'Sullivan / INPHO
Lorraine O'Sullivan / INPHO / INPHO
Glory for St Joseph's Doora-Barefield in the 1999 All-Ireland club final. Lorraine O'Sullivan / INPHO
Lorraine O'Sullivan / INPHO / INPHO
“It feels like a long time ago now. I took Joseph’s for seven years. We had a great team and great success. Maybe that little bit of experience I brought with me has helped and then going to a club like Mellows has been enjoyable
“The county scene is a totally different structure. Working with Davy Fitz, I was part of a big machine and the same with Loughnane and others. With this you’re the main cog and I like that kind of a buzz of people coming to you to find out what’s next and what’s happening.
“I feel that I’ve helped in that way with them so that’s maybe given me the enthusiasm to keep going. I was able to offer something from the experience I’ve had and I felt valued and appreciated for what I was giving them. I’ve made a lot of friends up there to be honest with you.
“Here all of Galway is looking at you to progress. I used to remember when we got out of Clare with Joseph’s, you became Clare. I remember playing against Athenry in an All-Ireland final and it felt like Clare versus Galway.
“That buzz of representing your county and I think there’s a duty and an honour that you must do that with pride. I would look at Saturday’s game as like Galway versus Dublin from that point of view.”
James Crombie / INPHO
James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
James Crombie / INPHO
James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
The capacity of the Liam Mellows squad to absorb information and cope with setbacks has impressed him. From his time with Galway, Mulqueen coached David Collins, Aonghus Callanan and John Lee.
He has watched Collins and Callanan become lynchpins for the team while the blow of losing Lee to a torn cruciate had to be withstood. Lee’s brother Brian and Enda Fallon are others crippled with long-term knee problems.
Into that void young players have stepped up and they have developed a happy knack of chiselling victories out of tight games.
In Galway they won a quarter-final replay against Clarinbridge by two points, had a single point to spare in a semi-final against Capptaggle and were three points clear of Gort at the final whistle on county final day.
The scale of the challenge in Thurles today has crystallised in front of them. Mulqueen watched Ballyea players he knew intimately get swept away by Cuala last year. But they will have a raucous support base in Semple Stadium and hope to harness that.
“We’re up against a serious operation, a team with eight or nine inter-county players and one of the prodigies in the country in hurling or football in Con O’Callaghan up against us.
“We’ve achieved to win Galway but now we have to pit our talents against the best. They need to turn up and really play up a couple of levels.
“10th of February hurling is totally different after the Christmas break. I remember going up to Cushendall with Joseph’s for an All-Ireland semi-final. We drew the first day and everybody had thought we were going up to hammer them. On a wet and windy day, we were nearly playing against the wind in both halves. Throwing up the ball, it could have gone anywhere.
“Weather wise this time of year, it depends who’s on form after Christmas. That’s what I’m taking into the game. Mellows are excited. There’s going to be a big crowd. They’ll travel in force. They’ve bodhrans, they’ve green flares, all that they had for the county final.
“They’re a great club to support and we want to go up Saturday to do them proud and not leave them down.”
'I reefed my ribs off my breast bone' - how coaching took hold for Mulqueen and Galway club glory
LOUIS MULQUEEN HAD a front-row view for his native Clare’s glory under the Saturday night lights in 2013.
As one of the assistants to Davy Fitzgerald plotting the Banner backdoor route that culminated on a joyous note in late September, he savoured that moment.
And yet a Galway club breakthrough on the first Sunday of last December was unlike anything he had witnessed before.
The Galway senior hurling arena is a bearpit that has produced six different champions since 2010.
But for Liam Mellows from the city to be the last team standing was not the final act envisaged in many hurling scripts out west in 2017.
Still they belied their position as a club contesting a first county final in 47 years by taking down a Gort side who were featuring in their fourth decider since 2011.
“The outpouring of emotions when they won the county final on the pitch that day, I’ll never forget it.
“I was involved in 2013 with Clare with the buntings and the tinsel coming down in Croke Park. But this was really touching.
“It was families, it was young and old, people crying on the pitch. They never saw this coming and they were appreciative of what you’d done for them.”
In the winter of 2016 the Liam Mellows brain trust planned for the coming year and zoned in on their target. They wanted to recruit the principal of Rice College in Ennis as they sought to tap into his hurling knowledge.
The project intrigued Mulqueen.
“The boys came down to me a couple of times and I accepted the challenge. They told me they were the 11th best team in Galway when I started and to me that was motivation to try and improve. We ended up as team number one which was good.
“They’re a really good club, very well organised. The officers involved are excellent. It’s really impressed me, the people there.
“I’m around 35 years now with hurling teams. What I liked about this was I was able to get good people working with me in the club. They’re very progressive and well structured. They have good business people behind them that are Mellows to the core. The Mellows network that is there saw people all over the world send good wishes to them.
“Some of it was about trying to improve their confidence levels. They’d been in two or three relegation battles, they had lost two U21 finals and minor finals in the past. It was just trying to get the mindsets right and get them playing to their potential.
“There’s around 12 of the panel U21. There’s a very young age profile there. What I tried to work on as well was to speed up their game a little bit because it was a bit pedantic in the way it was. We’ve worked hard on that all year.”
It has propelled them to the bracket of the current top four teams in Ireland. They will pit themselves today against a Cuala side who reigned in Croke Park on St Patrick’s Day last and are unbeaten on the championship road since the 2015 Leinster final against Oulart-the-Ballagh.
For Mulqueen it is the latest contest in his hurling coaching adventure that rolled on and on. He started out hurling for Éire Óg, following a well-worn local path of playing in the Harty Cup with St Flannan’s before bounding on to play U21 hurling and football with Clare.
Then he was struck down, his player career brought to an abrupt halt.
“I was a PE teacher and I picked up a stupid injury doing gymnastics with kids one day. I reefed my ribs off my breast bone in my chest.
“I was with Dr Con O’Brien there in Blackrock Clinic for months trying to get that repaired. I tried to get back at hurling after that to a point but when you went to hit a ball, the muscles would swell up. I stopped around 26 or 27 then, I couldn’t play much more.”
His love for hurling never deserted him and he switched his focus to coaching. Roles with Clare underage teams were the catalyst for spells with senior teams. He worked during the Len Gaynor and Cyril Lyons eras in Clare. He followed Ger Loughnane to Galway. When Davy took over in Clare, he turned to Mulqueen to help him.
And away from the elite county stage, he enjoyed a period of glittering success with St Joseph’s Doora Barefield. They reigned in Clare in 1998, 1999 and 2001. They triumphed in Munster in 1998 and 1999.
In March 1999 they captured the All-Ireland by blitzing Wexford’s Rathnure and only a goalscoring spree by Galway’s Athenry prevented them from retaining that trophy twelve months later.
“It feels like a long time ago now. I took Joseph’s for seven years. We had a great team and great success. Maybe that little bit of experience I brought with me has helped and then going to a club like Mellows has been enjoyable
“The county scene is a totally different structure. Working with Davy Fitz, I was part of a big machine and the same with Loughnane and others. With this you’re the main cog and I like that kind of a buzz of people coming to you to find out what’s next and what’s happening.
“I feel that I’ve helped in that way with them so that’s maybe given me the enthusiasm to keep going. I was able to offer something from the experience I’ve had and I felt valued and appreciated for what I was giving them. I’ve made a lot of friends up there to be honest with you.
“Here all of Galway is looking at you to progress. I used to remember when we got out of Clare with Joseph’s, you became Clare. I remember playing against Athenry in an All-Ireland final and it felt like Clare versus Galway.
“That buzz of representing your county and I think there’s a duty and an honour that you must do that with pride. I would look at Saturday’s game as like Galway versus Dublin from that point of view.”
The capacity of the Liam Mellows squad to absorb information and cope with setbacks has impressed him. From his time with Galway, Mulqueen coached David Collins, Aonghus Callanan and John Lee.
He has watched Collins and Callanan become lynchpins for the team while the blow of losing Lee to a torn cruciate had to be withstood. Lee’s brother Brian and Enda Fallon are others crippled with long-term knee problems.
Into that void young players have stepped up and they have developed a happy knack of chiselling victories out of tight games.
In Galway they won a quarter-final replay against Clarinbridge by two points, had a single point to spare in a semi-final against Capptaggle and were three points clear of Gort at the final whistle on county final day.
The scale of the challenge in Thurles today has crystallised in front of them. Mulqueen watched Ballyea players he knew intimately get swept away by Cuala last year. But they will have a raucous support base in Semple Stadium and hope to harness that.
“We’re up against a serious operation, a team with eight or nine inter-county players and one of the prodigies in the country in hurling or football in Con O’Callaghan up against us.
“We’ve achieved to win Galway but now we have to pit our talents against the best. They need to turn up and really play up a couple of levels.
“10th of February hurling is totally different after the Christmas break. I remember going up to Cushendall with Joseph’s for an All-Ireland semi-final. We drew the first day and everybody had thought we were going up to hammer them. On a wet and windy day, we were nearly playing against the wind in both halves. Throwing up the ball, it could have gone anywhere.
“Weather wise this time of year, it depends who’s on form after Christmas. That’s what I’m taking into the game. Mellows are excited. There’s going to be a big crowd. They’ll travel in force. They’ve bodhrans, they’ve green flares, all that they had for the county final.
“They’re a great club to support and we want to go up Saturday to do them proud and not leave them down.”
‘I definitely think there’s huge scope for the GAA to develop their own channel and their own model’
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Liam Mellows Louis Mulqueen Clare Galway The Mellows Master