It was back in November, 2015, in a hotel in Ennis and Ger Loughnane had some time to kill. He was due to speak at the launch of Anthony Daly's autobiography and his eyes were drawn to a photograph on the wall.

It was one that he was very familiar with - a picture of the 1995 All-Ireland winning Clare team, managed by Loughnane and captained by Daly. But as Loughnane scanned the faces, he started to count.

"I was standing looking at it and it just struck me as absolutely exceptional,'' said Loughnane. "If you look at that pic, then six of the players went into inter-county management - Cyril Lyons, Anthony Daly, Ger O'Loughlin, Davy Fitzgerald, Ollie Baker and Brian Lohan. But, also, two of the backroom team - Tony Considine and Mike McNamara - did so as well.

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"And nearly all of the rest of the players are club managers, club trainers, working with college teams, involved with underage teams with Clare."

On Sunday, Lohan joined Fitzgerald - who won the MacCarthy Cup in 2013 - in following in Loughnane's footsteps and leading the Banner to All-Ireland glory.

It seems strange as the jibe that was aimed at Clare's direction for decades was that they lacked leaders.

"That was the crucial thing,'' said Loughnane. "So many leaders developed on that team.

"Not at the start, but when they got experience, you could leave the dressing-room and leave them at it.

"I'd just come in at the end and summarise or just give the last message before they went out on the field.

"And they relished being leaders. They got more confidence in themselves and wanted to continue that afterwards when they stopped playing."

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