Hogan’s heroes face their biggest battle
The All-Ireland winning goalkeeper with Tipperary is in charge of Coolderry hurlers in Offaly, and the absence of big guns like Ballyhale Shamrocks and Portumna, for example, is enough to make any outfit lose their focus and look ahead to St Patrick’s Day.
Hogan admits, in fact, that the date isn’t far from his mind.
“All I know is that we play U21 hurling every St Patrick’s Day out in Lorrha & Dorrha! That championship is always played on St Patrick’s Day, and we always head home after the match to watch the club championship then on television.
“That kind of looking ahead to next year wouldn’t come into the reckoning at all. It’d be fine if you were waiting for six weeks, you’d have time maybe to think about other things, but we were out only two weeks ago against Ballyboden, and getting lads right after injuries that day and so on — that takes up all your time, and all your attention.”
“The big focus is tomorrow — getting lads right for the day.”
Oulart-the-Ballagh are in the opposite corner. Given they ousted James Stephens of Kilkenny the last day, and the recent promotion of their manager Liam Dunne to the Wexford hotseat, there’s been a lot of attention paid to them. Is that a help to Hogan and his men?
“I’m not conscious of that, to be honest — I don’t know if people are talking about Oulart that much.
“What I do know is that we have our own stuff to be thinking of, as I’m sure Oulart have. Playing hurling at this time of the year, you’ve got to be happy with the fact that you’re playing hurling in the first place, and looking forward to the game.
“We’ll be focusing on what we’re doing, and I’m sure Liam (Dunne) and Oulart are at the same thing.”
Focus hasn’t been difficult to maintain. Not with pals like Hogan’s, who have helped him keep his feet on the ground.
“I met a friend of mine a couple of days after we beat Ballyboden, and as you can imagine I was fairly happy with myself after beating them in Dublin.
“He said to me, ‘was Conal Keaney playing Sunday? Or Stephen Hiney?’, and of course they weren’t. ‘Conal Keaney would be worth ten points to them,’ he said, so that wasn’t long bringing me back down to earth.
“We got a poor start against them, and we were six-three down early on, but we got into it. We had three weeks to get ready for it and to be honest, we had a disappointing season last year when it came to Leinster, so we were determined to do a bit better this time round.
“And in fairness, the lads showed that — we hung in there and got back on terms and eventually got the win, and I thought we deserved it on the balance of play.”
It was interesting to hear Seán Stack, who’s managing new Limerick champions Na Piarsaigh, say that six weeks was a perfect break for his youngsters ahead of their Munster club SHC clash with Ballygunner of Waterford (which they won).
Is Hogan happy he’s had enough time to get his lads right?
“Three weeks is a good break, and at this time of year the whole time you’re praying the day of the game will be half-right — that the elements don’t take over and reduce the whole thing to a lottery.
“Over the years you’d have seen plenty of club finals and semi-finals that should have been called off, the conditions were so bad.
“But one thing I’d say Oulart would be looking for as well is a day that’s half-right, the same as ourselves. When you think of this time last year you couldn’t think of playing any sort of game, so at least it’s a bit better than that.
“We had a few pucks on Wednesday night and that was it, but we’ve a fairly clean bill of health anyway.
“There are one or two lads with slight knocks but nobody’s really ruled out. You couldn’t stop those lads playing anyway, they’re so keen.”
It’s that time of year. Who wouldn’t be?
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