LOUGHREA’S ASCENT TO the summit of Galway hurling in 2006 started three weeks after losing the 2005 decider.
For the second time in three years, Portumna had proved to be their nemesis on county final day. Home of the famous Canning family, Portumna were a dominant force in those days and they would go on to win four All-Ireland titles over the course of the next decade.
So for Loughrea — a club trying to end a drought that stretched back to 1941 — they had considerable opponents to vanquish. And in the wake of that second Galway SHC final defeat to their fellow south Galway side, Loughrea started putting the work in.
“We were highly motivated,” says Brian Mahony, who was a key member of that Loughrea team. He tells The42 about the punishing training regime his teammates threw themselves into in the pursuit of that elusive Galway crown.
“We had the hurt of the two finals that we lost previously and we didn’t take a whole lot of motivating that year in ’06. We got back fairly quickly, and it was old school stuff of running up mountains near Derrybrien. We had great guys involved with us, like Tommy Coen who’s Johnny’s father.
“The nucleus of the team was 25, 26 years of age and hurling was everything back then.
“Damien McClearn was our captain at the time and he was driving the standards. We had two or three at it the one night and word goes round and the next thing you have five or six. We were all mad to get back. We had tasted defeat and we were trying to give ourselves every advantage.”
The old school methods worked as Loughrea finally scaled the mountain in 2006, dethroning the mighty Portumna in a bruising and equally controversial final. Loughrea’s manager at the time was Pat O’Connor, and he pointed to those hard yards clocked up by the players in the Galway mountains as being at the root of their success.
Speaking to the Connacht Tribune after their triumph, he explained that that early season work was born entirely from the initiative of the players.
“Three weeks after the county final,” he explained “they decided they were going to do this. It was nothing to do with me or anyone else. They decided themselves.”
The way that county final unfolded made Loughrea’s victory all the more remarkable. They were trailing by eight points at half-time and rallied to win by just one point after a late free converted by Johnny Maher. It was the “stuff of dreams” as Mahony remembers it.
The physical nature of the game sparked some controversy, but Mahony has a different recollection of those events.
“We played them in the two previous county finals and they were every bit as physical. In every county final, there’d be no quarter given or asked. There was a bit of a hullabaloo in the aftermath but we crossed paths with Portumna many times after and there was never an issue after that.
“Things died down very quickly and we were lucky enough to be victorious on the day. They were victorious on many days as well. Things move on and there’s always a tradition in Galway club hurling that the team who doesn’t win comes to the winning team’s town, and Portumna came the following Monday evening and had a few drinks with us.”
Loughrea progressed all the way to the All-Ireland final in that campaign, where they lost out to a Ballyhale Shamrocks side that featured talents like Henry Shefflin and Michael Fennelly among other quality players. Mahony even found himself marking a young TJ Reid in that decider at Croke Park.
But that 2006 season proved to be Loughrea’s last major charge for success. They reached the county final four more times after that, including the 2010 decider against Clarinbridge which went to a replay. They fell short in each of those attempts and have been trapped in the wilderness ever since.
This year, they’ve earned another shot at the title.
Once again, they find themselves facing into another county final replay, and again they have been paired with another powerful south Galway club in the showpiece.
St Thomas’ are the Portumna of modern hurling in Galway. The 2013 All-Ireland champions are chasing a county five-in-a-row this year and were narrowly denied that honour by a late Tiernan Killeen equaliser in the drawn game last Sunday.
For Loughrea to complete the mission against their neighbours later today [Throw-in, 1pm], Mahony says they must do more to press their advantage when they get on top.
“We got the dream start the last day but we probably weren’t far enough ahead. We were only four points up at half-time after doing a lot of hurling. So when Loughrea get their purple patch, they need to maximise it on the scoreboard. If we can keep Conor Cooney down to a point from play and keep David Burke on the back foot… they won’t be overawed by the occasion.
“A lot of the Thomas’ guys would go to school in Loughrea so we’ve always had a good rapport with them and good banter. I suppose St Thomas’ is nestled halfway between the towns of Loughrea and Gort.
“David Burke and Johnny Coen teach together in the secondary school in Loughrea. We’ve always been hurling against them all the way up along and socialising with them. There’s a good mixture of Loughrea flags in town and the odd Thomas’ one. There’s a good buzz around the place.”
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