SNOOKER: Tom Humphries talks to Liam Moggan, the man who helped to revitalise Ken Doherty's game.

It's been a tough couple of weeks for Liam Moggan but all through he sung the same refrain - Ken Doherty will win the world snooker championship. Even on those days when Doherty's back was pressed hard against the wall, Moggan believed. It wasn't to be but the changes in Doherty's approach and his heroic comebacks at The Crucible surely presage a new phase in his career.

Moggan, the high performance manager at the National Coaching and Development centre in Limerick, and Doherty met through a seminar Moggan gave in Limerick last year. A mutual friend, Gerry Cullen, attended the seminar. Gerry worked with Ken's wife, Sarah, and had heard Doherty mention his eagerness to get into other areas of preparation. Cullen came to Moggan and passed on the telephone number.

They met last October in Doherty's house and, after a couple more meeting, they made Jason's, in Ranelagh, the backdrop for all future work. Moggan is modest about his contribution to the changes in Doherty's approach since then.

"We identified that the main opponent to be targeted was Ken Doherty. It's Ken competing for perfection against Ken Doherty. Not (Mark) Williams or (Paul) Hunter. Coaching is about developing inter-personal skills.

"I thought Ken conducted himself terrifically well. He'll be sore at not having a trophy but there is a winner in another way, the strength and the dignity."

Moggan's initial concern was how he would fit into the tight-knit group around Doherty.

"Ken has a friend, Pat Caulfield, who has been there for years. Pat has been coaching him technically, working closely all along. Pat's name came up early. I thought there was no way I could be of any help unless Pat was involved. So the three of us met and Pat embraced the whole idea."

Moggan, no snooker expert, started by looking at the requirements for any top sports person. Four fundamentals: technical, tactical, mental, physical. And two others which he believes make a difference - lifestyle management and personal qualities.

Four or five weeks ago Moggan really began to notice the change in Doherty. The player's focus accelerated. The week to week layering of different aspects to review and do began to pay off.

"I would begin hearing back things I'd say. Pat Caulfield had been saying a lot of those things for a lot longer. I wasn't coming in with a whole new brush."

Layering? Moggan brought elements in from athletics. He asked what were the real qualities of a great snooker player, asked the questions a pro wouldn't have asked himself in a long time. He reckons his expertise was in making training more effective and more measurable.

"There's a theory from middle distance about running junk miles. Everyone feels you have to do 100 miles a week and most of it is junk, crap. The same with Ken. Time on table had to become really effective time. Time on table was reduced especially near competition."

Since January Doherty has been eating carefully, drinking water, thinking about general health and fitness, going swimming and running, five to six times a week. Even the time in Sheffield was planned out. The comebacks were no surprise.

"Ken's first big competition since I've known him was when he lost the Masters by a frame just before Christmas to Williams. Ken was on the table, the balls were spread and he lost through an in-off when he was just about to make a game-winning break. He lost 10-9.

"Since then we've worked on a certain approach and focus to every ball. We broke it down. Just the routine of hitting each ball. Clear your mind of the score.

"The only concern I had was when he was 8-0 up against (John) Higgins, the potential was there to be a little less specific to it. It's the score that makes the pressure. The opponent is Ken Doherty. He had to depend and rely on his intuition. He was twice a world champion before I ever met him."

On Monday night when facing a comparatively easy red, Doherty lifted his head, removed a little lint from the baize and bent down again only to miss?

"I'd have been quite happy with that," says Moggan "When you go down to address the ball the decision and assessment should be over with. If anything happens down there, you get back up and start again. That's a shot Ken hits 99 out of 100 times. That was the once. The fact he saw the fluff or whatever, he got up and down again."

The business of high performance management brings him into contact with many different sports. During the reign of the late Lar Foley he was coach to the Dublin hurling team. Right now he is manager of the paralympic athletics team for Athens. He was involved with St Patrick's Athletic last year, does quite a bit of equestrian work and is a founder member of Irish Milers Club.

In the past he has worked with Brian Kerr and Noel O'Reilly. They are the template he reaches for in explaining what makes the difference.

"Brian and Noel could have coached anything. The coach people who play soccer, they don't coach soccer. It's people."

And that in short he says was the secret of the last 17 days for Doherty. Not Liam Moggan, but Ken Doherty and the person he is.