By Cian O'Connell

"Is anything a risk?" Louis Mulqueen wonders when asked about assuming the role of Liam Mellows manager at the start of 2017. "If you're looking at it and worrying about your own reputation or worrying about your own ego, you'll never do anything.

"I was taking a few months off and two lads came down to me and met me in the Auburn Lodge in Ennis and asked me."

Mulqueen's face creases into a smile. "They had a project for me," he laughs. "I went off skiing at school and forgot about it. Two more calls later, I had six weeks off at that stage and I'm fresh again."

A year and a half later on a nippy November night with Mellows set for a second successive Galway SHC Final appearance Mulqueen can reflect on the considerable distance travelled.

"It was a challenge when you look at it," Mulqueen admits. "Okay, when the challenge came right it was brilliant. If it didn't come right it was still progression for them when you put the work in."

There was something about Mellows which captured Mulqueen's attention. Mellows were trying to do things properly, adding pitches, attracting youngsters to hurling, small little things that ultimately do matter a lot. There were shades of St Joseph's Doora/Barefield, who took Clare, Munster, and Ireland by storm a couple of decades ago.

"What I saw last year was that this was probably a sleeping giant of a club," Mulqueen states. "But I'd known David Collins, I'd known Aonghus Callanan, I'd known [Conor] Kavanagh, I'd known Tadhg [Haran] probably from Galway hurling, but you get to know them and I'd spotted this with other teams over time, and even when I had St Joseph's years ago, it's not the experienced inter-county players, but club hurlers that developed and when played well around the big boys, you now started to have a very, very good team."

There was class in that Joseph's team, but character too. "I remember Gey Hoey with Joseph's, God rest him, he passed away, he was always going out to be man of the match," Mulqueen recalls.

"In the All-Ireland club final, Lorcan Hassett was man of the match. It wasn't Jamesie O'Connor. It wasn't Seanie McMahon. It was other people working so hard around them that made it. That's kind of happening up here. There's great work-rate from certain people. You'll hear of Aonghus [Callanan] and Tadhg [Haran] and Dave [Collins] but it's the work-rate of other players around you.

"Sean Morrissey, Jack Hastings, there's people there that are raising their game and if you can get the balance of that right on the big day and that's what happened last year against Gort, we banged in three goals at the right times. We got two before half-time and one in the 47th minute just when Gort were coming again. The Gods and the omens aligned. Can it happen again on Sunday? We're going to try. Thomas' will have their own ideas equally, but it's just great to be at this stage."

What has encouraged Mulqueen most of all, though, is Mellows' progression which was illustrated during a tense semi-final climax against Cappataggle.

"What we've tried to do here over the two years with Mellows was try to work to a pattern of play, we try to get people to believe in themselves," Mulqueen comments.

"If you put in the context that they hadn't won for 47 years and then they won last year. We didn't want it to be a flash in the pan.

"The Cappataggle match showed me one thing was this thing we've been working on this calmness, this composure or that they keep working to a pattern or an idea, they didn't panic even when we went a point down with 60 seconds to go. They worked the ball out, they took their scores well and there didn't seem to be at any stage thinking that it was gone from us. We never gave up on it and to me that was a belief, that was something that you can't buy in many senses, it's something that you kind of instil in a team. That's the one thing I'm taking out of this year.

"We're not playing well, 100 percent. We're winning games, we're winning ugly would be my phrase on this one. We're scraping through. We didn't put a game together like we did against Gort last year. What I like about is that we're not giving up on the dream. What we're doing is we're working hard; the work-rate is very, very good; the passion is there and they want to win for Mellows and for themselves and I think that's a big thing I've taken out of this year.

"At the start of the year I came up wondering where were they as county champions and the excitement of it and what you see again the razzamatazz is super for a club like. And they're kind of getting used to it now, which is a lovely thing. And that's something that they didn't have they're expecting to be in a county final or expecting to do well. That was goal number one this year: to be consistent and not go into this second year syndrome where you come across and say like I was with Clare in 2013 and we didn't puck a ball in '14. You lose it and when you lose the momentum, you're gone so the big thing this year was to try and hold it to where they were."

Mulqueen's coaching career has been long and varied, but significant success and experience has been accumulated.

Becoming the Mellows manager, though - a figurehead, the man making the ultimate decisions was something Mulqueen wanted to embrace.

"I see it as kind of a pet project for me," Mulqueen acknowledges. "What I like about this one being honest is and it's not ego. You were Ger Loughnane's right-hand man, you were Davy Fitz's right-hand man, you were Cyril Lyons' right-hand man, stuck beside them.

"This is my own project so it's not that I want to be the main man.

"Here, it's how I want to do it and how I plan the session so whereas I was part of the jigsaw in the other place, here maybe you're the maker of the jigsaw. It's your baby or your own project that you're working on and I've got great people around me and working and helping and so on. You can put your stamp on it.

"I always have my own ideas on hurling but when you were someone else was the kingpin so that was what this was about for me.

"I'm really enjoying taking them to the next level or keeping them competitive.

" Where you go after that and what happens on Sunday happens, you can't stop it but you're going to go out, you're going to be prepared well, you're going to give it 100 per cent and do what we can but we are literally against inter-county players and All-Stars and that's in my mind too that you must really raise your game to compete with them."

Having served alongside Loughnane and Fitzgerald, two of the most compelling figures in the hurling world, does Mulqueen remain in contact?

"Myself and Loughnane used to go for lunch, Davy launched his book last week so I went down to check what was written about me," Mulqueen jokes.

"You do, but funny enough without putting it too much in writing one manager I didn't see him for eight years ago, but when I was with him it was 10 calls a day.

"When you're in it you're in the thick of it. There's certain people that will still keep in touch. Like after the All-Stars, you ring John Conlon, you ring Peter Duggan, you text 'well done'.

"There's a camaraderie that builds up. When you're in the thick of it, that's like your current family and it's intense and sometimes like when you move on, the club is always the club.

"Like St Joseph's are having their 20th reunion this year and they're all heading off to Westport and things like that.

"I was in charge of the Clare minors in 97, we won the All-Ireland as well. They had their reunion in Durty Nelly's there last year. There's that camaraderie that builds up with hurling, it's more intense when you're with the current one."

That bond always carries meaning for Mulqueen, regardless of the team or level, a spirit must exist.

"100 percent, I think hurling is unique in that," Mulqueen replies. "The GAA is unique in that because with all respect I played hurling, football, soccer, all sports. I was a PE teacher in my past life. Hurling builds a family bond. You breathe it, you live it. The analysis that goes into it. They'd be saying 'did you see that'?

"We were all at the quarter-finals and semi-finals, as much as the St Thomas' players are. It becomes life, doesn't it? And it breeds a new life and I think the last thing is that up here (in Mellows) we've created a new lease of life for our club because I'm so impressed with their professionalism.

"Even tonight, there's a PowerPoint set up for this and everything is set up, everything is there the club has got groups together, committees together preparing for what they learned from last year, what they can do better. The club is very progressive and they're very good organised people." Mulqueen was merely the perfect fit to get Mellows roaring again.