All-Ireland SHC Semi-finalKeith Duggan on how the Clare team regarded as entertaining, slightly oddball, likeable and sometimes a little frightening are not finished just yet

In one hundred years from now, if the disappearing polar caps have not flooded the Gulf Stream and frozen the Gaelic fields, if the old game survives at all, surely the Clare hurling team of the last 10 years will shine as steadfast as the very best.

Somehow, a decade has passed since that fearless, brilliant summer when Clare's ferocious belief and intent melted the hierarchical Munster hurling structure that pre-dated the great wars. Through four hot and unforgettable months, Clare ended a failure to champion Munster that went back to 1932 and claimed a first All-Ireland since 1914.

A more forensic or measured team might have evoked a moderate degree of interest in greater Ireland. But because Clare were loud and triumphal and humble and dramatic, because, in the oppressive championship system, they were so masterful in the giving of a voice to the underdog the country took to that Clare hurling team with a warmth that was rare.

One of their great, if inadvertent feats, was they flooded the youthful imagination across the vast hurling drought areas north of the Shannon pot with dreams of hurling. Ten years ago, there were children in football pockets of Cavan or Donegal who imagined one day emulating Jamesie O'Connor, if only for a brief while. And subconsciously, they appeared to trigger a mood for revolution in the other hurling counties who for decades had lain low, tremulous and accepting.

Clare's example was simple and universal. Led by Ger Loughnane, the messianic and pale-eyed schoolmaster who seemed like a character plucked from a Cormac McCarthy novel, Clare were entertaining, they were slightly oddball, they were likeable and they were sometimes a little frightening. And they were young. In 1995, they had it all before them.

"God, I was just gone 21," marvelled Ollie Baker as he stood in the trenchant heat in Ballinasloe last Wednesday, where he now works as a garda.

"Like Frank Lohan would have been the same age, Seánie Mc(Mahon) was 21. Jamesie might have been a year older. But for a lot of us, that success came upon us very quickly. I suppose that is why the impression was formed that we were hurling for such a long time. Even five years later, when we were badly beaten by Tipperary in 2000 and people were saying that it was all over for us, a lot of us were still only 27 or 28 years of age. As hurlers, we still felt in our prime. Like, what were we supposed to do? Hang up the boots en masse?"

That Baker should allude to retirement so quickly after reminiscing on his thunderous annunciation as a senior hurler is understandable. More than any team, this Clare team have grown accustomed to having their obituary spread in 48 point across Monday morning broadsheets. Both collectively and individually, the hurlers of Clare have lived with the insinuation that their lion-hearted days are over and that it would be better to retreat gracefully from the scene. It was as though because Clare set out their stall as an invincible, unstoppable force that the notion of their faltering and struggling was tougher for observers to stomach than for the team themselves.

Only four of the team who played in the 1995 All-Ireland final against Offaly will start in the All-Ireland semi-final against Cork on Sunday: Davy Fitzgerald, Brian Lohan, Frank Lohan and Seán McMahon. But because those four players are such totemic figures in hurling and because Anthony Daly, the raven-headed rapid-talking captain of 10 years ago stalks the sidelines now it is easy to create the sense that the old gang still rides. Slowly but surely, time and age have scrubbed the majority of those characters, from the ambling, moustachioed PJ O'Connell to the bookish Ger "Sparrow" O'Loughlin, the crafty score-taker whose importance was illuminated after he quit.

But the spirit is unchanged. And there have been times in recent championships when it was implied that the persistence of Clare's diminishing old guard in believing they could out-hurl, out-think and out-war county teams who metamorphosed on an annual basis was an exercise in delusion or foolishness.

The spell was declared over in 2000, when Nicky English's highly organised young Tipperary team beat Clare by 2-19 to 1-14 for the first time since 1993. Clare's improbable All-Ireland final appearance in 2002 under Cyril Lyons, the underrated successor to Loughnane, ended in a tame, one-sided loss to Kilkenny and was interpreted as conclusive proof that Clare could no longer summon the wonderful fury of old. Sentimentalists cringed when Waterford visited a black hour against Clare early last summer, destroying the older team in a remorseless exhibition of hurling that was, in tone and mood, like a nod to the Clare team of yesterday. That game was Baker's last championship start.

"It wasn't the best of days," he says quietly.

"We were just caught by a good team on fire that day. I played out the championship and it just felt like the right time to stop. I had put in a massive effort, to be honest, and got myself as fit as I had been for years but in never really happened for me. And there was criticism directed at me, but the funny thing is that when you are training with and playing with the same group for so long, it doesn't really get to you. You might hear it but it means nothing. And it wasn't a hard decision, I was happy that there were a couple of good lads coming through. I left when I felt the time was right."

After Tipperary put Clare away at the start of this year's championship on a dismal, slippery day in Limerick, the latest funeral notices were posted. That the great Brian Lohan had struggled in the company of Micheál Webster, the strong and lanky Tipperary novice, was regarded as final proof that the Clare decline was hastening and that the most stoic of the crop of 1995 was finally weakening.

And yet here they are. Hurling in August, down to the last four in the championship, primed for Cork, so slick and young and expectant. Outsiders, yes, but still leaving the vast majority guessing as to what they just might do.

"See, people forget that this is a shrewd Clare team," explains Mike McNamara, the great trainer from Scarriff.

"This is a different era for hurling and people are only beginning to realise that the championship doesn't truly begin until the All-Ireland quarter-final series. Clare were so-so in the league and maybe against Tipperary, the team was not the best in a positional sense, I think they acknowledge that themselves. And after Tipperary, there was a lot of criticism. That performance would have been acceptable up to 10 years ago. But since 1995, nothing less than consistent victory is acceptable.

"But some of the senior guys, like Brian Lohan and Davy who played with us in the dark days of 1993 when we had one of the most embarrassing days or our lives, they know what it is to overcome adversity. And when it came to the most significant game of the season, against Wexford, they got it right.

"With Clare, we realised that peaking on the right day was tantamount to success and Anthony Daly had those boys in the perfect state against Wexford, regardless of the game. And it puts them right where they want to be, playing the All-Ireland champions in a semi-final. It is one of those games that brings out the best in Clare, one of those super-charged performances that they are famous for."

And that is what makes this Sunday so tantalising. Cork are heavy favourites but within Clare lurks the perverse ability to prove everybody wrong. Although Wexford were mysteriously hollow against Clare and the game itself muted, there was an undeniable magnificence in the sight of McMahon and, in particular, Brian Lohan, bossing the great field with the authority of old.

"The fact that these players are still appearing in All-Ireland semi-finals 10 years on, well, it's a remarkable achievement really," acknowledges Gerald McCarthy, whose up-and-coming Waterford team got embroiled in a tempestuous Munster final series against the Banner back in 1998, the hurling summer of discontent.

"I don't think it can ever be over emphasised how fortunate Clare were to have a group like that emerge at once.

"Because they are a rare bunch, to have that quality running through the field and the great desire to keep hurling for Clare. You know, Seánie McMahon still looks like a majestic hurler, Davy Fitzgerald made stunning saves in the league final. The fact is they should be praised and celebrated rather than being criticised."

And Clare are no strangers to discord. During that heated championship of 1998, Loughnane whipped up the county mood with fuming tirades that were interpreted by some as paranoid. It was only half a surprise that he subsequently listed 1998, in which Clare finally lost with class and dignity after an epic three game semi-final series against Offaly, as his favourite. More recently, Loughnane's strident media criticism of his old team has angered many hurling people with the county.

Perhaps Loughnane, the bluntest of all evangelists, would find it hypocritical to spare his old friends the lash of his tongue but his observations on some players who would have died (or killed) for him on a field seem especially barbed.

"When those lads came along - Jamesie, Ollie, Anthony Daly - Clare hurling had nothing," says McNamara slowly.

"And it was those players who put Clare hurling on the map. It was no management. It wasn't Loughnane, it wasn't Mike Mac or anyone but the players. And a lot of people believe they are not being shown the respect they deserve from some quarters."

Perhaps that is also true in the general clamour for the last of the boys of summer to consider calling it a day. Perhaps there is a smallness in the majority of us that takes an unacknowledged sliver of delight in seeing the great players taken down a peg or two for daring to stay on for so long. The difference with this Clare team is they have accepted the bleakest of punishments, both individually and collectively, and have returned unbroken. Baker laughs at the idea that a tough afternoon against Tipperary might cause Brian Lohan sleepless nights.

"Listen, I have soldiered with that guy through I don't know what. Brian makes up his own mind about things and nothing is going to interfere with that. He will decide when he is done and I think he has plenty in him yet. Players like Brian Lohan, they just come around once in a lifetime."

Back in 1995, Clare set out on that summer of change with a 2-13 to 3-9 win against Cork, a defeat that sent Rebel hurling into a cave for the next three years. Cork returned to win an All-Ireland in 1999. Jimmy Barry Murphy left a year later, and form and relationships deteriorated to the point of a player strike in 2002. Setanta burst upon the imagination in 2003 and emigrated that autumn, Brian Corcoran came out or retirement a year later. Cork were masters again in 2004. That is Cork's way: fast, impatient, smart and successful.

In Clare, it could never be so. Ten years ago, they broadened the imagination of hurling and caused other counties to believe that anything was possible. Tomorrow, they set out to prove that the same is true. It is their last, glorious stand. Again.