HOW MUCH LOVE do Clare hurling folks have for Brian Lohan?

In conversation with one of that number on Monday, he summed it up. In recent history, two men have crept into virtually every hurling conversation around Clare: Davy Fitzgerald and his former protector at full-back clad in the red helmet, Lohan.

No need to re-enter all that stuff. But our buddy gave his supporter’s perspective.

“He’s everyone’s loveable big uncle.

“He has the traditional Irish values that Clare people appreciate: less talk and more action. Like Cluxton, he’s the player everyone knows, but really nobody knows.”

In summing up?

“Davy wins titles. But Lohan wins hearts.”

That might be about to change. In examining the form of Clare since Lohan took over in late 2019, you can see that a steel rod has been pushed through the team since the first two years of finding their feet.  

You can’t help but think back to a different time, sporting and in every other sense, when Clare travelled north in their own cars to face Antrim in the first round of the hurling league in May 2021.

That day, Antrim scored their first ever win against one of the traditional Munster powerhouses in a competitive game, 1-21 to 0-22.

At the time, Clare hurling was being besieged by rumours and off-field issues, the unfinished centre of excellence in Caherlohan just the physical manifestation of a deeper malaise.

After the game, reporters danced around the issues, Lohan wearing facemask while polishing his glasses and dealing out all the praise to Antrim for their performance.

“We weren’t able to match Antrim for desire. They had much more desire than us and, if you don’t get that basic right, you’re in trouble,” he said.

“It was always going to be a very competitive game up here. A big, strong team; and the basic is that you have the same amount of desire as what they have. And we weren’t able to match them.”

A question was lobbed underarm to Lohan about being under pressure and rather surprisingly, he agreed, before a question about all the mess swirling around Clare concerning personal disagreements, county board interference and criticism of the centre of excellence.

“Had it an effect on that team?” asked one reporter, stepping back for an expected verbal onslaught, only to be answered with a softly-spoken, “I don’t think so.”

Lohan’s reputation as a warrior on the pitch was in fact enhanced by the lack of verbals.

That was best captured in an anecdote that Tommy Guilfoyle shared last year. Guilfoyle’s county career petered out as Lohan was coming onstream, but they had plenty of tangles at club level. One Friday night in Tulla he found himself alongside Lohan waiting for a ball to come out of the skies.

“Of course I ended up hitting him, I might even have knocked off his red helmet,” giggled Guilfoyle.

“Well it was the worst thing I ever did. After that he was like a man possessed. I could tell just from his body language that he was right thick with me. I was going to myself, ‘Bad move, Tommy. Bad move.’ He never said a word. He didn’t even hit me back. He just growled and glared and dashed out in front for every ball.”

The funny thing was, this wasn’t the first Lohan that Guilfoyle had crossed. Fifteen years previous, he was up against Brian’s father, Gus.

The Wolfe Tones club was formed to provide hurling for the new area of Shannon that sprung up as a result of the airport. It wasn’t quite the same parish feel of other Clare clubs, until men like Gus Lohan made it.

“We were both going out for the ball, all arms and legs; Gus wouldn’t have been the fastest man, certainly not as fast as Brian,” recalled Guilfoyle.

“Anyway, I ended up accidentally tripping him up with my hurley. Well, he hit the ground like a ton of bricks and when he got up, he was bulling.

“Again, he hardly said a word. It was all in his body language. Brian was more like Gus. In his aggression. Being not that verbal. And in his demeanour. I mean to this day you still have the Lohan Stare. And when he gives it no words are needed. The Stare is enough.”

We aren’t painting in broad brushes here as much as flinging paint around by the tin, but it’s still not a stretch to say that Lohan has reintroduced that gruff, hard edge to Clare hurling. Naturally, the most famous practitioner of the art was Ger Loughnane.

In 2013, they won an All-Ireland by being a team of technicians. There was a potent blend of Paul Kinnerk’s big beautiful hurling brain and Davy Fitzgerald’s demonic drive.

After Davy there was Gerry O’Connor and Donal Maloney. And it took them far enough too, but somewhere along the way, Clare became a ‘nice’ team to play against. Lohan wouldn’t have thought much of that.

Who is in his own inner circle? He has been spotted in O’Connor’s in Shannon having lunch with Tony Considine. It has been said that he occasionally will share time with Loughnane himself.

Much like Loughnane’s group, he values privacy. Some counties have administrators and fringe elements flying in and out of dressing rooms, carrying stories of team talks around the place.

Lohan enlisted the former Clare football full-back in 1992, Ciaran O’Neill, as an informal dressing room doorman. He maintains a tidy square, just as he held Maurice Fitzgerald scoreless in that year’s Munster final.

After the two Covid-influenced years of 2020 and 2021, Clare’s consistency has been rising. Over the last two years they have played 11 championship games, winning seven, drawing that epic in Ennis against Limerick, with three defeats.

One of those was this year’s Munster opener to Tipperary, easily excused away by what John Conlon described as goals you’d be embarrassed to concede in a Junior B game.

The others were last year’s Munster final, lost by a goal to Limerick.

The only defeat they simply did turn up for was the meltdown against Kilkenny in last year’s All-Ireland semi-final when they found themselves 14 points adrift at half time.  

And now here they are, back-to-back Munster finals, seeking their seventh-ever title and their first in a quarter of a century.

God knows who will join them for the big day but they won’t care. The improvements right around the pitch has them flowing with confidence.

Shane O’Donnell is exerting himself in a way we always suspected he could. Tony Kelly is being allowed to pick his own path through games. The nerve and the skill of Diarmuid Ryan to fling that final winner over against Cork from virtually the next townland, it’s coursing through them.

And on the line, the hard edge and quiet determination of Brian Lohan. And the Lohan Stare.