UNDISPUTED
THERE HAVE BEEN INSPIRATIONAL LEADERS, TACTICAL MASTERMINDS, VISIONARY HEROES AND CHARISMATIC REVOLUTIONARIES, BUT ONE MAN STANDS APART WHEN IT COMES TO HURLING’S GREAT MANAGERS
AS THE game has changed, so too the role of manager.
During the 1970s, Canon Bertie Troy’s fingerprints were all over Cork’s three-in-a-row but that was from a time when the team was run as much by committee and board politics.
Pat Henderson’s time in charge of Kilkenny, too, was before the cult of manager really kicked in and the role took on the scale of a medium-sized business.
Then there’s the blurred lines between the manager-cumcoach, a number of names near the top of this list comfortable in both the bainisteoir jersey and with whistle in hand.
To look at the lasting legacy a coach can have, Fr Tommy Maher was another prime example in Kilkenny, the Godfather of Modern Hurling as Enda McEvoy’s book documented.
To do it with different teams, particularly different counties, brings an added dimension, with Davy Fitzgerald’s managerial achievements the ultimate case in point.
To bridge the generations, too, requires an even greater leap of faith and that is what marks out the achievements of the likes of Ger Loughnane in Clare, Cyril Farrell in Galway and Diarmuid Healy in Offaly.
Anthony Daly’s time with Dublin deserves special mention too as being transformative with him leading the county to a first National League since 1939 and first Leinster title since 1963.
Add Eamonn Cregan’s impact with Offaly, Donal O’Grady challenging Cork’s traditionalists with a successful running game, or Ollie Walsh’s light touch while guiding Kilkenny to All-Irelands, and it just shows how hard it is to fit all the different approaches in to the one list.
10 LIAM GRIFFIN Wexford, 1995-96
The story of being spat at by one of his county’s own supporters following defeat by Meath in a 1995 National League game said much about the road Wexford travelled under Griffin. From that low point, he inspired Wexford to light up 1996’s summer. Between invoking Braveheart and walking his men proudly across the border before the Leinster final, ahead of returning with the
Winners: Wexford’s Liam Griffin and (top) Clare’s Ger Loughnane
Bob O’Keeffe Cup in tow, he brought an attention to detail that prepared the team to adapt to losing a man – as happened in the All-Ireland final.
That’s not to mention the fire and passion he brought as the beating heart of Wexford on the sideline that unified the Wexford dressing room and unlocked the team’s potential.
Thus, the 1996 summer was another of those madcap, story-filled ones of the 1990s revolution, as Wexford won a first All-Ireland since 1968.
9 DIARMUID HEALY Offaly, 1979-86; Kilkenny 1988-90
Still spoken of with reverence when it comes to the mapping the modern Offaly success story.
He brought an understanding of what it takes to be the best from Kilkenny and St Kieran’s College and became synonymous with the county’s breakthrough All-Ireland successes of 1981 and 1985.
While Andy Gallagher was front of house in the first part of his tenure with Offaly, it was Healy’s influence and coaching that was instrumental to a new name being added to hurling’s roll of honour.
What Offaly would later achieve, up to the All-Irelands of ’94 and ’98, would flow from that 1980s heyday.
And he would continue to impart his knowledge with Kilkenny and with Conahy Shamrocks.
8 MICHAEL ‘BABS’ KEATING Tipperary 1987-94; Laois 1995-97; Offaly 1998; Tipperary 2006-2007
Don’t let his legacy be overly coloured by the ‘sheep in a heap’ controversy and Tipp’s exit from Offaly in mid-summer of 1998 or how he caused ructions in Tipperary by axing Brendan Cummins from the team and his outspoken newspaper columns – Babs’ first coming with Tipperary was the stuff of folklore. It’s hard to put into words the full extent of a county’s pent-up emotion after going from 1971 to 1987 without a Munster title but captain Richie Stakelum caught the mood brilliantly with his ‘famine is over’ speech in Killarney when that provincial title breakthrough finally came. The free-wheeling All-Ireland final win over Antrim was one thing; the 1991 campaign one with an epic sweep taking in Limerick, Cork, bitter rivals Galway and then Kilkenny. He was ahead of his time , too, in driving the Supporters Club in Tipp and looking after players.
7 LIAM SHEEDY Tipperary 2008-2010 and 2019-present
A sign of his leadership credentials is that he went from masterminding Tipperary’s first All-Ireland since 2001 – thwarting Kilkenny’s five-in-arow bid – to taking on a role with Sport Ireland, chairing the GAA’s 2020 Hurling Review Committee and making the short-list for the top role of director general.
Who knows what would have happened if work commitments didn’t force him to step down after he took Tipp to the summit?
He built the strongest of dressing room bonds and surrounded himself with bright minds, Eamon O’Shea and Michael Ryan each taking up the managerial baton in turn.
The second coming brought his county straight back to the summit with a vision for Tipperary GAA that included strategic sponsorship and structural appointments, from Teneo to a commercial board.
He had the street smarts to readjust mid-championship and win that 2019 title despite a Munster-final mauling by Limerick
His commitment to coaching was seen in his work with the Antrim hurlers in an advisory capacity before taking charge of Tipperary.
6 DAVY FITZGERALD Waterford 2008-2011; Clare 2012-2016; Wexford 2017-2021).
Only one man’s obsession with the game could cause him to take time out from his own wedding party to run a training session with his own club Sixmilebridge in October 2019.
And that while juggling coaching his club to a county title the same year he guided Wexford to a first Leinster title in 15 years.
To lead three different counties to major championship honours sets him apart in the game – that Wexford title going with the 2010 Munster title with Waterford and the National League (2016) and All-Ireland title (2013) with his native Clare.
Everywhere he has gone he has made a big impact, whether at club level or at college level with LIT on the Fitzgibbon front.
Such is his full-on style, he has fallen in and out of love in various dressing rooms but the story of the Wexford players driving down to Sixmilebridge to convince him to stay on shows how he is rated.
With Wexford, he guided the team back up to Division One and shook off the yoke of Kilkenny in the process in his usual combustible, uber-driven style.
That he was able to cite 31-and-ahalf years of involvement at senior county level, between playing and managing, is truly remarkable.
5 JUSTIN McCARTHY Cork 1975-76, Clare 1977-80, Cork 1984-85, Waterford 2002-2008, Limerick 2009-2010
His knowledge of the game shines through over the course of a long and varied career in coaching and management – his book Hooked is an education for any player looking to improve or understand how a wall ball and dedicated practice can unlock potential.
A coaching missionary happy to invest his time in other counties, from stints with Antrim and Clare dating back to the 1970s, not to mention his native Cork that blurred the lines between a coaching and management brief.
He first became involved in coaching in 1969 when he was recuperating following his motorcycle accident and a shattered leg and set about imparting the knowledge from a player of such pedigree he had picked up a Hurler of the Year award.
Rode shotgun with Fr Harry Bohan in Clare during the county’s resurgence with back-to-back National Leagues.
Back with Cork when they won the Centenary All-Ireland final in 1984,
he oversaw the thrilling brand of hurling that Waterford lit up the noughties with, epitomised in the epic 2004 Munster title win, one of three provincial victories.
That Waterford didn’t reach an AllIreland final must have been a source of regret – as was the dressing room split that saw him part company with Waterford and try to stubbornly stay on subsequently through a rancorous split in Limerick.
4 JOHN KIELY Limerick, 2017-present
From a point where a book was written on Limerick hurling titled ‘Unlimited Heartbreak’, the school principal has overseen a period of success that sparked talk of a dynasty and is only rivalled in the county’s past by the great team of the 1930s that featured the iconic Mick Mackey.
Just look at the span of Limerick’s achievement: a first All-Ireland since 1973 in 2018; back-to-back National Leagues in 2019 and 2020; a hat-trick of Munster titles, not done since the 30s. Sharp enough to put a serious team around him and put his faith in the coaching brain of Paul Kinnerk and a slick, tactical set-up that championship and hitting 30 points in the final against Waterford.
Kiely was bold enough to radically reshape the team too with the big defensive shift epitomised in the move of Kyle Hayes from centreforward to wing-back and Hurler of the Year Cian Lynch from midfield to 11. Not to mention switching Dan Morrissey from wing-back to number three where he collected an All-Star and using another former forward, Barry Nash, as a ball-playing corner-back.
The Limerick Academy and the support of long-time benefactor JP McManus all contributed to a point of parallels being drawn with the Dublin football team in embedding that culture of excellence.
3 CYRIL FARRELL Galway 1979-82, 1984-91, 1996-98
Just listen to him on a recent Anthony Daly podcast and the instinctive understanding of the game becomes apparent. ‘Lifting kgs is lovely, what about hitting the bloody ball over the bar?’ just one priceless observation on his own county’s failings this year.
It’s the same sharpness of mind that made him such a staple of The
Sunday Game. Always invested in coaching and management, whether with his own Tommy Larkins or at underage with Galway, he oversaw the county’s emergence from hurling’s wilderness with that breakthrough All-Ireland in 1980.
And he was there again to oversee Galway’s most successful era later that same decade, the back-toback All-Irelands of 198788 with a team whose mix of talent was captured in the dynamic halfback trio – Pete Finnerty a multiple AllStar and powerful figure on one wing, the dynamic, whitebooted Gerry McInerney on the other and the unyielding leadership of Tony Keady in the middle.
Not afraid either to push the envelope tactically, Galway catching Kilkenny on the hop in the 1986 semifinal when deploying a two-man inside line.
2 GER LOUGHNANE Clare 1994-2000; Galway 2007-08
A larger-than-life figure who captured the zeitgeist of hurling in the 1990s and a period of the game tagged as ‘The Revolution years’. And there was more than a whiff of anti-establishment about the charismatic leader from Feakle who seemed at his happiest when thumbing his nose at tradition and hurling’s old order and establishing Clare as the Team of the 90s. The scenes that greeted the county’s first All-Ireland since 1914 were a sight to behold in 1995, putting paid to talk of the Curse of Biddy Early. Instead, led by the likes of onfield generals Brian Lohan and Anthony Daly, Clare changed the game and the nature of team preparations with the commandolike routines overseen by Mike McNamara and the belief that it was long past time Clare cast off their ‘whipping boys’ of Munster label.
To back it all up in 1997 – beating fierce rivals Tipperary in both the Munster final and a unique first backdoor All-Ireland final – was the ultimate.
Along with selector Tony Considine, there was a tight management bond and a magic to the Clare story that was always going to be hard to repeat. Loughnane’s heart seemed so bound up with his native county, the marriage with Galway never fully gelled and it’s shaking up hurling’s old order with Clare for which he will be forever remembered.