Munster SHC semi-final Profile of Colin Lynch: Colin Lynch's quiet, unflinching passion for hurling has made him the fulcrum around which Clare operate, writes Keith Duggan.

He is a two-time All Star and has been a permanent presence on the Clare hurling team since 1997. Holy hell broke loose in the mid-summer of 1998 when he was crucially suspended on advice from nameless apparatchiks who likened the opening seconds of that year's Munster final to Dante's Inferno and called for the head of one man. His point at the climax of last year's All-Ireland quarter-final was like the lone voice in a madding bar that silences all others.

That score served to catapult Clare to the big-time of the popular imagination and restored to Galway hurling a sense of dread they felt they had warded off.

Three weeks ago against Tipperary, he, above all players, symbolised the state of dreamlike fury with which Clare once again shook off the lethargy of winter. Pale and crew-cut and sinewy, he lopes around the hotter spots of midfield action without ever betraying much emotion. His is one of the most respected names in hurling and he is recognisable a mile away. But who is Colin Lynch?

"He is just a guy who wants to hurl and then go back to his family without any of the fanfare or the rest of it," reckons Tony Considine, the former Clare selector.

"We'd be friendly still, all right," says Anthony Daly, Clare's captain in 1995 and 1997. "Like, we wouldn't be hanging out of each other but sometimes he would call into the shop and we might chat for an hour about this and that."

"He's a fella that, when he had something to say, others would listen," says John Carmody, his manager at Kilmaley.

It is maybe appropriate the most stoic hurler on the island was born in the heart of football country. Although the places are just a stone's throw apart, Kilmaley is the last frontier of hurling in Clare. Aeons ago, a mental line was drawn between the two places and since then, Lisseycasey, Lynch's home place, has devoted itself to football. A rule drafted at county convention allows those from football ghettos to train with the nearest hurling club and vice versa. So it was not unusual for Lissseycasey and Kilmaley to field football and hurling teams respectively made up of the same players. Lynch excelled at both but by his teens it was evident that he was only going in one direction.

"I remember having him at a divisional level when he was about 15 and asking him to come out of midfield to mark this wing forward who was really wreaking havoc against us. And Colin dropped back and just silenced him. There was no fuss but it just completely changed the game. I never forgot it," says Tony Considine.

From then, Considine used to tell John Lynch, Colin's father, he could be the real thing if he kept at it. From the CBS in Ennis, he was selected for the county minor and under-21 sides and was on the Clare senior panel as early as 1994. Glandular fever cut his stride in early 1995 - and many testify he would have made that historic team had his illness not been so debilitating it forced him to withdraw. A summer later, he was on the bench when Clare were culled in the first round of the Munster championship in a classic game against Limerick that ended 1-13 to 0-15.

"And I often think about what might have happened if we had brought him in, if he might have won it for us," admits Considine. "I still think about it."

A year later, when Clare were back in stride, taking Munster and All-Ireland honours in the maiden year of the qualifier system, Lynch had unveiled himself as the spare, unflinching and inscrutable figure who literally believed in letting his hurling to the talking.

Even in the totalitarian punishments of the Loughnane regime, the others noticed a new application about Lynch; a devotion to training that may not have been evident when he first appeared. Part of it was a reaction to missing out on 1995; part of it was his nature. It matters little to Lynch whether he is running drills with the Lohan brothers and James O'Connor or back home with the local club in Kilmaley.

"Even there the last day against Crusheen, he scored four points and was just outstanding for us," says Carmody.

"And other players respond to that. He brings a professional dimension in his approach, plays the game and that's it. He is a very down-to-earth guy and is respected very much around here but he shies away from all the attention that can come with being a county hurler."

In the tumult of 1998, when suspended in circumstances of such controversy that the hurling nation went molten, Lynch said little, if anything.

In limbo during the extraordinary saga against Offaly, Lynch was seen as the chief martyr of a season that, goes the legitimate argument, Clare would have again been supreme had he been allowed to play. Any urges Lynch might have felt to converse publicly about himself or his game were divorced in those few weeks.

"All he really said was that nothing would change if he had to do the same again," remembers Daly. "That is water under the bridge now but I suppose, yeah, a lot of us felt bad for Colin and I think time has shown he was badly treated. Like, if that full story was ever told, it would be extraordinary. But I don't think it had any kind of lasting effect on him. He had a fantastic year in 1997 and went on to have more great years long after the dust had settled on that whole thing."

He topped off last year's quarter-final score against Galway with 70 minutes of disciplined excellence against Waterford in the All-Ireland semi-final. Like every other Clare follower, Tony Considine floated out of Croke Park that evening.

Complex as the Clare team of the last decade had been, that they had discovered another dimension caught most of the hurling cognoscenti blind.

With the airwaves still buzzing about the return of Clare, Considine stopped off for a bite to eat in Kinnegad. It was maybe an hour and a half after the final whistle. In a corner with his family was Lynch, unknown and perfectly content. That is his way. Friendly and authoritative in the Clare dressing-room, he has pared his involvement down to those hours that involved hurling. He passed on the celebratory holidays the players earned through their All-Ireland wins. Rarely does he hang around for post-match social engagements.

"Oh, God, no," laughs Considine. "He wouldn't bother with that kind of stuff. "Look, he just loves to hurl and after that spends time with his family. Colin hasn't changed since the first day I met him. He is a leader and a phenomenal hurler, I think, but he just is not a glory hunter. He is not interested."

The accoutrements of success barely register with him. Although he smiled and accepted his All Stars in 1997 and 2002, he did not exactly prepare a speech.

"It would make no difference to him either way," says Considine.

"Look, they are nice to get and from that perspective, I'm sure Colin enjoyed them. But deep down I'd say he couldn't care less," says Daly.

It is ironic that as the vanguard of the great 1995-97 Clare team - bright and wonderfully talkative and fiercely intelligent - enters its twilight, Lynch, the man who says nothing, has emerged as its definitive leader. Through calmly getting on with business through the great and grim days for Clare, an enigma has grown up around Lynch.

"Well, he has that look, doesn't he?" agrees Tony Considine. "He has that stare that sort of stops you in your tracks. But the thing is, it is not something he has ever tried to cultivate, it is just a natural aspect of his personality."

As Daly sees it, there is no great mystery behind his reluctance to speak.

"Some fellas just are a bit wary of saying too much around big match times. Personally, I think it makes no difference but a few lads are like that. But if he has something to say, believe me, you won't be long hearing it."

The bad news for other counties is that most of those close to him reckon his natural athletic capacity shows no sign of waning now he is inhis 30s. When he returned to train with the panel last year, Daly noticed Lynch had managed to time the peak of his game better. In winters, he used to deliver coal for the fuel-company his father-in-law owns. The physical graft of that occupation and long winter sessions saw him burn off too much too soon in 2000 and 2001 when Clare were deemed to be in retreat.

Now, he has learned. Such is the relentless, week-in, week-out that Lynch appears to go on automatic: I hurl, therefore I am. It is hard to tell if the sport delivers him joy or is more an extension of his being.

"Well, it's hard to quantify what anybody gets from any sport," responds Daly. "It's a very individual thing. All I know is I was in the Clare dressing-room after the Tipperary game and we just grabbed each other and if you had seen the look in his face, the delight on him, you wouldn't be long understanding. But then, I was in there for a short while at half-time and his intensity of expression then, well that was something. With Colin, it comes down to honesty. No matter what, he can look himself in the eyes."