Interview/ Ger Loughnane: He's back. His passion, his fire, his madness. Whatever way you view Ger Loughnane, hurling has missed him. Tom Humphrieslistens to the new Galway manager.

Tired of pilgrims seeking him out and asking his counsel, Symeon the Stylite, an ascetic, went into the desert and lived for 37 years on a small platform on top of a pillar somewhere in Syria. He has had many imitators since, not least in the confraternity of former All-Ireland hurling managers, a group of ascetics who, knowing that things will never be the same again, withdraw to a life of virtuous and lofty contemplation, surveying the world from atop a column - usually a newspaper column.

Ger Loughnane was never going to be one for the long haul in the contemplation business. So rooted is Loughnane in the hard pulling of day-to-day life that even his gentlest contemplations during his six years as a media pillar seemed to leave bruises on fellas' ankles. His frankness even lost him favour in Clare. Moses' face didn't always fit in the Promised Land he had brought his tribe to.

So he's gone up the coast to Galway to a lost tribe looking for a leader. Already he dominates the landscape there. It's only February and hurling men are just stretching their limbs, but there's a yearning for summer and whatever Loughnane might bring to it.

His passion, his fire, his madness. Whatever way you view Ger Loughnane, hurling has missed him badly. He can't help himself. In Dublin during the week for one of those mild press events to launch the Allianz League, he found himself sitting between two other men who have come down from the pillar and returned to the throng, Babs Keating and Gerald McCarthy. Fascinating men in their own right, but the bulk of the audience and the bulk of the questions were for Loughnane.

Everything came with the usual frankness. Ollie Caning may have politely said that his retirement was unconnected with Portumna's treatment at the hands of the county board. Loughnane spoke of Canning's deep disappointment with the outcome of the investigation into the Galway County final.

A few minutes later he had Nickey Brennan shifting uneasily in his seat as he launched a few Scuds at the lack of commonsense refereeing vis-a-vis Tommy Dunne's experience last Sunday.

He's back.

Typical of his nature is the height at which he has set the bar for himself. When the GAA was giving its Management 101 class in Understatement and Playing Things Down, Loughnane was missing.

He concedes straight up that he is in Galway to win an All-Ireland within two years, preferably within a year.

"You can't go into Galway and say that you are team-building. Not when you have this huge amount of talented players there already. You're starting off with players in their prime. We're either going to produce the goods in the next few years or we're never going to produce them. If at the end of two years I haven't produced them, I'm a failure."

Lordee. What Mr Loughnane means to say is this: "Certainly there are some good hurlers in Galway, but we're having a look right through the county at the moment and that's a process which takes time. We have a short league campaign and then into the championship, so there's not much time to find our feet or to discover our best team, and if you compare what we have here to the resources available in Kilkenny or Cork, or even Tipperary, well, you can see that we have a hell of a long way to go."

It's a small thing for Ger Loughnane to say. An All-Ireland in two years or I'm a failure. It's an amazing thing for any GAA manager to say.

That's why he has been missed.

At first, being back was like when he started off with Clare. At home he didn't like talking too much before the evenings got a stretch and what he had to say mattered. And on the first night in Galway, when he got the team all togged out into a field near Clarinbridge, he looked at them and said, right, it starts now.

Off they went straight away with Louis Mulqueen to do their training and to offer up their thrice-weekly ration of sweat. No launch. No big sit-down. No explanations, pledges or promises. Loughnane Light. A gradual immersion.

"We'll build it up," he says. "I think it's better to approach players individually before you have any big meeting. There's lots of time for that later on. I wanted to start working on individual players, working on some of the faults that we see with Galway teams, some of those things are just in the Galway approach. We're trying to get a more direct style out of them, get the ball moving a bit faster. All that will come in time. It's really enjoyable though."

He seems surprised at how much he is relishing it. Coming back to hurling happened quickly in the end, and once Galway had dangled the hook Loughnane was never going to turn and swim away. His worry was that he would start back and find himself missing the comforts of home life or find that the energy wasn't there any more when he went to summon it.

"By the time we finished in Clare, I was so exhausted from the effort that we'd put into it over the six years that nobody could have told me that I would ever go back into intercounty management again.

"From the time Galway approached me, though, to ending up in the job, it all happened so quickly. It was only when I had the job that I wondered whether I was going to enjoy it or not. I've been re-energised though. I had worries about how I would react. Would I find it all a chore. It's the opposite. I don't regret one minute of it since I've come back. I look forward to training every night."

Times have changed greatly. The storied work which was done in Crusheen and on the hill in Shannon with the Clare boys seems almost quaint now.

Galway are undergoing an immersion in the principles of core stability as espoused by Ger Hartmann. He was involved with Loughnane during the Clare days (and got reluctantly dragged into some minor controversy in the county last year involving Anthony Daly, one of Loughnane's successors). Hartmann is involved again, first in the infirmary and on the field, and secondly and less directly through working with Loughnane's confederate, Louis Mulqueen (the former successful St Joseph's Doora-Barefield coach who also had a stint working with Loughnane in their native county). Mulqueen is applying Hartmann's principles to Galway's sessions.

"A lot of Galway players have appeared to carry injuries for over three or four years," says Loughnane. "Derek Hardiman, Ger Farragher and Alan Kerins, for instance, are entering a key period of rehabilitation. Their enthusiasm and that of the players who replaced them when they were out is fantastic. Throughout the panel the enthusiasm is fantastic. Players see an opportunity here. It's impossible to stop them training even if they are sick."

It's a tantalising prospect. There's an old coaching saw about not wanting to put the 15 best players on the pitch but the best 15, but in Galway they seldom seem capable of doing either. To have long-term injury victims sprightly again, and to welcome back faces which people thought had been lost to the ranks of the disappeared will be a welcome step.

"People ask questions about the fellas coming back," says Loughnane. "That was no problem, to get them back. They were itching to be back. We've no proof yet though that whatever reason they were gone for wasn't right! Like ourselves, they have to prove themselves. So far, though, I'm terrifically impressed by the likes of Fergal Moore and Mark Kerins (both named for tomorrow's opener against Antrim). Kevin Broderick. Eugene Cloonan. All of those have a lot to prove.

"We're all in the same boat. We all have a lot to prove. Players who are there already and have been there all the time - they have a lot to prove. That brings an energy of its own. When they get a setback, how will they react? Will there be a meltdown, like after the All-Ireland against Cork two years ago?"

That's the magic of Loughnane. He goes on to speak of a certain softness which he has detected in Galway hurling. He sees it in the county team but not in their club championship (who could claim that and face the Canning family?). He talks about meltdowns and Galway's failures and goes yomping happily over entire fields of great sensitivity. If Galway don't like it, then they have employed the wrong man to take them out of the purgatory of the promising where they have lived for decades. Loughnane calls it as he sees it. Galway can deal with that however it wishes.

One thing Loughnane is determined not to inflict upon his new countymen is endless tales of how things were in Clare back in the revolution years of the mid-1990s, during that tide which lifted all boats except Galway's.

"That time is gone. We left it behind years ago, even in Clare. Everything is different now. Even the methods we use. The lads used to do four or five times a week in Clare. Mostly running. Now it's a completely revolutionised system.

"Everything is geared towards developing muscles and reflexes specifically for hurling. No more laps or long running. It's all fast, dynamic work. Lots of strength work and building up their core. All geared towards the kind of strength you need when hurling comes around. I'm surprised at how Galway are training on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays for now."

Loughnane has been surprised to find that a huge proportion of his side head to the gym on the other days of their own accord. Once again he seems to have found himself amidst a group whose passion for achievement will match his own.

"Young lads are very serious about it now. If you are a manager, you better produce good sessions for them. They are more demanding these days. And they are right. They are ambitious, intelligent and they are right."

He talks on, frank as ever. He wouldn't have been found working in a Cork or a Kilkenny. His mission is teams with a fragility, "whether it is mental or physical". He wants to know more about Galway's fragility. Perhaps alone among county managers in February he longs for a league final meeting with Kilkenny.

"The preparation has been excellent. What their mental attitude will be like on the big day is still under question. Until they perform on a really big day with pressure on, we won't know. We have to take the league seriously, get as far as possible and have our team settled by the end of June."

He's back. Happy. Recharged and optimistic. The game is in for a treat.

"Managers," he says, "need to publicise the game and make them as attractive as they possibly can. There's a big responsibility on managers to do that and a big responsibility on county boards to market the game, but the fact that so many new managers have come in has given an initial impetus. You have most of the controversial managers back again."

Liam Griffin, come down off the pillar, the old band is getting together again and Loughnane is blowing like Satchmo already.