At club level he played with Na Piarsaigh and was also a member of the Cork senior hurling team.
Coughlan first played hurling at juvenile and underage levels with the Na Piarsaigh club on Cork's northside.
After captaining the club to minor and under-21 championship titles, he subsequently joined the club's senior team and won County Championship titles in 1990, as team captain, and 1995.
[3] He progressed onto the Cork under-21 team and, after captaining the team in the first round of the 1982 championship, was dropped from the starting fifteen for the Munster final defeat of Limerick, before later failing to make the matchday panel for the 1982 All-Ireland under-21 final defeat of Galway.
[citation needed] On 5 January 2002, Coughlan died suddenly after suffering a heart attack after taking part in an over-35 five-a-side soccer tournament in Whitechurch, County Cork.