Diarmuid O'Flynn meets Liam Doyle, the Clare wing-back, and Michael Cleary a sharp-shooting wing-forward for Tipperary.DOF: How did the nicknames come about?

MC: I was in Australia for six months in 1985, when I came home the lads called me Skippy.

LD: There was a lot of money involved in mine. Going to secondary school one morning, there was Special Branch, Army, detectives all over the village. It was around the time Shergar disappeared and was supposed to be somewhere in the area. By the time we got to school, we were an hour late and the teacher asked me to explain. I did and the lads started calling me Shergar. Over the years then, that just became Horse.

DOF: You have a Clare connection, Michael?

MC: Yes, my mother's maiden name was Gavan, from Ogonelloe, I still have relations over there. I went there on my summer holidays once, but only once. I was a townie born and raised, in Nenagh, lived right on the street. One summer, I was taken to Clare, I distinctly remember my father loading up the milk truck with my bicycle. I arrived there on the Monday morning, delighted with myself but they had to come and get me on the Tuesday! That was the end of country living for me.

DOF: You would have been aware of how badly Clare needed to make the breakthrough in Munster hurling. Did you see it coming in 1995, or were you as surprised as everyone else?

MC: I'd go back long before that, to 1986 in Killarney. Clare should have beaten Cork in that Munster final. I know it might seem easy saying this now, but I knew they were coming through. I remember talking to Babs Keating in December of '94 and he said: 'Don't write off Clare next year, they'll have an edge to them, a different attitude under Loughnane.'

We beat the tar out of Waterford in the first round in '95, Paul Delaney and Mick Ryan got suspended out of it. Limerick then beat us by a point in the semi-final, Gary Kirby scored 13 or 14 points from frees, Declan Ryan just missed a point near the end to equalise it. Clare had beaten Cork in the other semi-final and I fancied them to beat Limerick.

Limerick were under a bit of a cloud after losing the All-Ireland the way they did in 1994, maybe they were in a bit of a comfort zone, I don't know. But I don't think Clare would have beaten Tipperary, I don't think they were ready.

Fast-forward to 1997 though, and there was no doubt about it, I think Clare were eight or ten points a better team than Tipp, in both the Munster and All-Ireland finals. I've never seen the video of the All-Ireland, but I've seen the Munster, and I don't know how Tipp were within two points of Clare at the end. You look at the match in the cold light of day, Clare were ten points a better team.

LD: In 1998, against Offaly, the same thing happened, we should have been well away from them, but weren't, allowed them back into it.

DOF: You know, I've always felt the real error by Jimmy Cooney that day wasn't the premature whistle, it was when he didn't send off Michael Duignan, at a time when Clare were totally on top. He felt sorry for Offaly, when he should have been completely dispassionate, neutral. More than the early whistle, by which time Offaly were back in the game, that's what cost Clare. If they'd been ten points clear, as they would have been, there would have been no outcry, no replay.

MC: Who did he pull across?

LD: David Forde. It was an awful pull too. He did the same thing against Wexford, but you wouldn't think so to look at him on television now! There's no doubt he should have gone that day, we were ten or eleven points up, I think, but that should not have influenced the referee.

MC: 1997, 1998, those were the two best years of Clare, in my opinion, that was their peak, but I know how they felt after 1998, I had my own bad experience, from a referee blowing up a game too early. We had lost the county semi-final replay in 1991 and 1992, then reached the final in '93, against Toomevara. Near the finish, we were two points behind, got a 21-yd free over near the stand; I went over to take it, Billy Flannery said to me, Mikey, tap it over the bar, there's two minutes left, still plenty of time. I pointed it, was running back to midfield, and the referee blew up the match, at least two minutes early. You can see it in the video, there was total silence around the ground, people were stunned. It had been a fantastic game of hurling, one of those games where people hate to see one team losing; the referee thought I was after tying it up with the free, so he blew it up, convinced there would be a replay. He never refereed after, Tommy Donnelly, he was so upset, but sure he was only trying to make a draw of it. So we suffered as well, from a premature final whistle! We came back from that, won our only county senior title, in 1995, lost to Sixmilebridge in the Munster club final. We were two points ahead after ten minutes of the second half, lost by 17. Work that one out, total capitulation.

DOF: So 1995 was a breakthrough year for both of ye, for different reasons. For teams trying to make that breakthrough, how important is the referee? So often you hear the cry from the underdogs, we wuz robbed.

LD: I don't know, I think when you lose, you're always looking for someone else to blame.

DOF: Sign of weakness?

LD: It is yeah, it's always a bad sign.

MC: Look to yourself first, because that's usually where the fault lies.

DOF: Michael, with a foot in both camps, so to speak, what was your reaction when the rivalry started to turn nasty?

MC: It never bothered me at all, I'd be kind of broad-minded that way. I'd have Clare lads passing through Nenagh at the time, they'd come into the shop waving their flags, that sort of stuff, but sure I enjoyed it, that's all part of it. I'm sure we'd have Tipp lads doing the same thing, every county would have them, slagging neighbouring counties. Isn't that all part of it?

LD: I think it was always just a good healthy rivalry. A lot of the hype at the time was coming from the media. There was a bit of banter there among the supporters, a bit more maybe among the extremes, but the way it was written about and talked about at the time, you'd swear war was going to break out on the field. But that never happened.

MC: I don't think there was any player sent off between Clare and Tipperary in all those championship matches, was there?

LD: I can't remember anyone, no. Frank Lohan was sent off alright one night in Ennis, in a League game, a tough one, which Tipp won by a point.

MC: I reckon that game had a major bearing on Clare winning the All-Ireland that year. When we met Clare later, in the Munster final, we were psyched up for another really tough game, and Clare just hurled us off the field. Loughnane had thought in the League game, that Clare could beat Tipp just by being physical. But I think he realised that night that no, you needed to hurl Tipp, they weren't going to be bullied.

LD: I'm actually thinking of it there for a while now, we met in the championship a good few times, '93, '94, '97, '99, 2000, 2001, and I can't think of anyone ever sent off, in all those years. I don't know what all the fuss was about, to be honest.

DOF: Well, there was yourself and

John Leahy?

LD: Yeah, we were well matched, didn't spare one another, but there was never anything in it that wasn't part and parcel of the game. That was the way we played the game. He was definitely the toughest player I ever marked, the first name that springs to mind. We had a lot of really tough battles over the years, I think we both gave as good as we got.

DOF: Who was the toughest you met, Michael?

MC: Believe it or not, John Power. He played wing-back for Kilkenny and I was on him in three successive years, '89, '90 and '91. He was not a big man, maybe only eleven stone, but one of those real wiry fellas. Even when he went to centre-forward, he rolled over fellas. Sure did you ever see the games between himself and Liam Dunne of Wexford?

LD: I wouldn't be a great man for reading books, but I brought Dunne's book on holidays to Spain. He was a tough man too but he went through some hard times.

MC: He has a great wife, that's for sure!

DOF: You've no wife, Michael, didn't pick one up from the camogie team, when you were in charge there?

MC: Joe Hayes told me never to mix business with pleasure!

DOF: Regrets?

MC: My regret might surprise you; I regret that I didn't finish with Tipp in '93. It would have been very young, I know, but my father died that year, and I'll never forget it.

Three or four months later, the business came back on myself; it was a struggle enough at the time anyway, keeping that going, but the following year, 94, I found myself going over to Thurles training on a Monday night, or whatever, wondering if I'd this done, or that done, worried if my mother would be okay. All of a sudden, my priorities were totally turned on their head. I knew in my heart and soul I wasn't right, for inter-county hurling, I was almost delighted that Tipp were beaten by Clare. No, delighted is the wrong word, but relieved, that I'd have the summer off. I played again in '95, '96 when I was nominated by Nenagh as captain, '97 because Len Gaynor was a friend of mine. My first game that year against Offaly, above in Nenagh, Kevin Martin hit me a belt between the two eyes, cracked me skull and I spent two or three days in hospital.

If I had it all back again, I'd have finished in '93. When you're a young fella growing up, all you want to do is wear that jersey, play with your county, but it catches up with you after a while. You're gone from hitting fifty frees a day in practice, seven days a week, all year round, to hitting ten frees, maybe, the last night before a championship match. Your priorities change. My father had been in the business for over 50 years, building it up, was I going to just let that go? And it was my livelihood, anyway. There were days I'd be up at quarter past six, delivering papers, then over in Thurles at half seven that evening, training. Mornings of big championship matches, I'd have been delivering papers from before seven o'clock. I wasn't kidding myself, because I knew it was wrong, but I was kidding every Tipp supporter going to those matches.

DOF: I still hear fellas saying you're still one of the most dangerous forwards in club hurling?

MC: Ah you'd hear that, you'll always have the fellas ready to criticise those that are there now.

LD: My biggest regret is 1998. I'm not saying we'd have won a third All-Ireland, but not getting there, especially the way in which we lost the semi-final, that was frustrating. We had a good team that year, we were more positive about what we were doing, but not even reaching the All-Ireland final, not getting the chance, that's my biggest disappointment.

DOF: You do actually have a third All-Ireland medal, the junior All-Ireland of 93, don't you?

LD: Yeah, but when people talk of All-Ireland medals, it's always the senior medals they're talking about, they're the only ones that really count.

DOF: Do ye like the new game Cork are playing?

MC: No, I detest it. To me, hurling is a spontaneous game, played with abandon, haphazard, breaking ball; this is taking a lot of that away, there's very little breaking ball in the type of game Cork are playing, it's all about possession, keeping the ball and no first-time hurling. The puck-outs are almost farcical at this stage, pucking the ball out to corner-backs, things like that. No, I don't like it, don't believe it's Cork hurling, and for that reason alone, and I'm not anti-Cork, I wouldn't like to see it succeed.

LD: I don't really like it either. But it's not a question of liking it, I think you have to use every advantage you have, and Cork are doing that.

DOF: Who's going to win on Sunday?

LD: Sure you'd always be hopeful with two evenly-matched teams, you'd be hoping to come out the right side of it.

MC: I agree. I think Clare forwards are better than last year, they're relying less on Gilligan, and because of that, and I know this sounds like a contradiction, he's playing better, scoring more.

DOF: Means too though that if he's held, he'll be a big loss?

MC: I see what you're saying, but you know what I mean; overall, their forwards are better this year. It's a big advantage to Tipp to have the two championship matches behind them, I think that will swing it for them.