*Brendan Bugler with his son Darragh on the field in Croke Park. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
AN ALL-IRELAND winner as a player, Brendan Bugler added the distinction of coaching his county to win the ultimate honours.
Bugler was wing back on the Clare side to win the 2013 All-Ireland senior hurling championship, eleven years on his first season as coach to the county seniors resulted in them claiming the Liam MacCarthy for only the fifth time.
Speaking to The Clare Echo shortly after leaving the dressing room in Croke Park on Sunday, Brendan stated, “it’s really hard to put into words right now, the only thing that matters is that the McCarthy Cup is coming to Clare”.
On the differences between winning as a player and coach, he remarked, “I have three kids now which I didn’t have then. Look the wins are equally special. I was part of a terrific group back then and this is also a terrific group and I am very fortunate to be involved with them”.
Panel development during the Allianz National Hurling League was underlined in the one point extra time win over Cork, he said. “Today was a real test of resilience and character and the use of our panel. The league this year allowed us to use our panel, Players like Darragh Lohan, Cian Galvin, we have seen how they can perform, they were terrific when they came in today. It’s so pleasing, you harp all year at training and in the A v B games how you need a strong panel. It comes down to games like today, we needed our panel and we got some response from them”.
To be level at half time despite falling seven points down by the eleventh minute strengthened the resolve of the Clare panel, the St Flannan’s College teacher outlined. “The start was a little ropey and we were doing really well on their puckouts but they were doing exceptionally well on our puckouts, particularly our long puckouts. We changed a couple of little things midway in the first half and we got great joy from going short. We managed to get shots off and slowly but surely we pulled their seven point lead back and going in at half time we thought we were in a great place”.
Heading into extra time with Conor Cleary, Peter Duggan and Mark Rodgers all having to leave the field with injuries, there would have been cause to be concerned within the Clare camp but Bugler admitted that was not their mindset. “Concern isn’t a word I would use at all because we have seen these guys perform whenever they were asked this year, in the league or championship. There was no concern, I knew they would go in and do a job”.
Coming out on the right side of an epic may have made the outcome sweeter for Clare’s supporters but winning was the only focus for Bugler and the management. “If it was ten points to nine today and we had the ten I would have been happy. In these games you have to earn to get there and we earned to get here today. You have to earn it to win and we had to earn it today, maybe it was one of the greatest All Irelands of all time, I haven’t really stopped to reflect and think about that”.
In his first season as part of the backroom team, Brendan believes Clare “learned a lot throughout the year. Panic is a word we don’t use. After every game we play we reflect a lot and we do break it down into fine detail. We look at two or three things and that is what we did. We had huge learnings from the Munster final this year. The stats showed we were pretty even with Limerick in a lot of areas except in the distribution of ball, that was a huge focus in our training, we worked on that and we were better against Wexford and better again against Kilkenny and today”.
Clare cannot afford to rest and must build on the success, he stressed. “These are great times for Clare hurling and the future is bright. Our underage structures are great, people there are driving it on, Clare hurling is strong and the important thing is not to take the foot off now, we must maintain the standards right up along. We need a conveyor belt coming through every year”.
Attention for Bugler will now revert to playing as part of the Whitegate panel in the Clare IHC. “We will enjoy this week and soak it all in and we will think about the club championships next week. Eleven year ago we had to play the week after the replay”.
