BANNER LEGEND LOOKS BACK AT HIS SHC DEBUT
Lohan recalls dream debut off bench against the Rebels
TWENTY-FIVE years ago this week, Frank Lohan was pitched in for his Championship debut with Clare.
The team had been well beaten in the two previous Munster finals and had endured a forgettable afternoon in their previous outing, flattering to deceive once again with silverware on offer as Kilkenny torched them in the League final.
Lohan had played throughout that League campaign but endured a difficult afternoon on Eamon Morrissey in the final.
With his exams in UCC right up against the Championship opener, the Munster semi-final against Cork, he was on the bench in Limerick, an addition to the subs by manager Ger Loughnane, wearing No 25.
“Ger was brilliant,” says Lohan of how he was handled back then.
“Like, I would never have come up from Cork until the evenings got longer and things like that.
“I wasn’t travelling the roads in January/february like a lot of inter-county players do now. He had a much more balanced view for young lads starting out.”
By half-time, Cork led by three points and Lohan, just 20, was sent in to replace John Chaplin. Ollie Baker also made his debut off the bench, coming on after just 23 minutes.
Ger O’loughlin, who wasn’t listed to start but replaced the injured Eamonn Taaffe, scored a goal with five minutes left to level the game before PJ O’connell put Clare in front.
Then Kevin Murray poached a goal for Cork after sterling defensive work from Lohan, who hooked Mark Mullins three times in the build-up only for the ball to fall to Murray in any event.
By then, Stephen Mcnamara had also been introduced, maxing out the three-sub limit at the time, so when centre-back Seanie Mcmahon broke his collar bone, he couldn’t be replaced.
Mcmahon bravely played on, moving up to corner-forward and, despite operating with one arm, managed to force a sideline ball. Fergie Tuohy whipped it in and Baker diverted it to the net for the winning goal.
“Even after that, there was still a good few twists because Ollie got the goal and then they came back up and they had another chance and hit the post and I got a flick away again,” says Lohan. “It was real end to end stuff.”
They held out though and come the Munster final, just 10 players held the same positions.
Lohan, Baker and Mcnamara all started and
O’loughlin kept his place as Clare won their first provincial crown in
63 years.
The same XV added the All-ireland in September, with Baker and O’loughlin winning
All Stars having been on the periphery of the team at the outset.
Lohan was a mainstay for a further 13 years, the only Championship game he missed being a tame Munster quarter-final against Kerry in 1997 when he was suspended.
“Ollie would have been considered very raw at that stage and turned into an unbelievable hurler. He was unhurlable by ‘98 in some ways, in my view anyway.
“You did have the core of an older bunch who had been through the two previous Munster finals. Fitzy, Doyler, Fergus Tuohy and PJ, lads like that as well, Conor Clancy and then you had a younger bunch that were just around the 20 mark.
“There were probably four or five of us that, by the Munster final, were starting.
“Looking back there was probably a lot of history in that type of a game as well, that (Cork game) was the type of game that Clare would have always lost down through the years.”