Horgan would love to overtake ‘best ever’ Kelly
Pat Horgan’s ears have been burning for the last few weeks with high praise coming from all quarters.
“It does my head in,” said Diarmuid O’Sullivan, “that Horgan is so apparently underrated nationally.”
While John Meyler, after watching his man shoot the lights out against Limerick, described him as one of hurling’s best three forwards in the last 10 years.
Records continue to fall like dominoes in front of Cork’s all-time Championship top scorer, who has been named the PwC GAA/GPA Player of the Month for May.
He was informed at the awards presentation that by shooting 1-9 against Limerick he smashed through the 400-point barrier for Championship scoring, leaving him 25 points behind Tipperary’s Eoin Kelly who is in fourth position in the overall national charts.
“I didn’t realise that until now,” smiled Horgan, who could reel in Kelly by the time the summer is out.
“That would be a real big deal to be honest. Just because I think that Eoin Kelly is the best that ever played.”
Kelly was a legendary figure within Tipp but Horgan’s admission that he was the Mullinahone man’s biggest fan may surprise some.
“Yeah, he’s the best,” Horgan maintained. “Just because of what he was able to do, the scores he would get, the touch, the striking.
"There’s not much else that you can do in hurling, he had it and he could do it.”
Meyler feels the same about Horgan though unlike Kelly, Eddie Keher, Joe Canning and Henry Shefflin, all of whom are ahead of him in the national scoring list, he doesn’t have that All-Ireland medal.
Horgan declined to take the bait on that one with the Munster Championship still in full swing.
He talked instead of the significance of last month’s win over the current All-Ireland holders, particularly after being beaten so comprehensively by Tipperary.
Asked what was on the line against Limerick, Horgan responded: “The year, the whole year basically. Being beaten by Tipperary and then going up to play the All-Ireland champions, it wasn’t easy.
"But we knew we had the confidence to play them because we’d been competitive in previous outings against them.
At half-time, it was nip and tuck. In the second-half, I don’t know what happened, we just went into a lead, got a goal and didn’t look back.
Horgan’s 52nd-minute goal, his 14th in the Championship, was the decisive strike, a sumptuous effort that underlined his immense ability as he pulled down Bill Cooper’s long, diagonal delivery in a crowded area with a feather-light touch, gathered up possession and slotted past Nickie Quaid.
“The first thing I remember is, ‘I’m in on goal here, one-on-one’,” said Horgan. “I didn’t know how I got there, was lucky enough to knock it down, it just fell to me.”
Yet, ‘lucky’ doesn’t do Horgan’s deft touch and skilful finish justice.
“But I could try that another 10 times and it wouldn’t come off,” he replied.
“On the day, it was lucky. Jesus, we badly needed it as well. It gave us a bit of a gap to push on again and get a result.
“Every single second, when you’re beside the goal, or anywhere on the field, so many different things change.
"It’s a last-second job, whether you’re going to catch it or touch it or whatever you’re going to do with it. I was just lucky enough that when I put up the hurley it came straight down.”
As far as wins go, it was a giant one, a statement of intention for the summer as much as two provincial points earned.
Yet there’s still two huge provincial games to go, beginning with Saturday’s visit of Waterford.
“Every game it’s on the line, yeah, it is actually every game,” said Horgan. “The thing is, with the five teams in Munster, every game is tough.
"There’s no such thing as, ‘Oh yeah, you’ll get a win here or there’. You’re not guaranteed anything.
"Unluckily for Waterford, they just came out the wrong side of a few results, especially playing Tipp.
"We were lucky enough to get a result against Limerick but you just might get a bad run of it and that’s what’s happened Waterford obviously.”
It may help Cork further down the line to run up a big score this weekend, though Horgan visibly recoiled at the remark.
“We’ll take any form of win,” he said. “From playing them over the years, we know how dangerous they can be.
"They’ve beaten us in an All-Ireland semi-final and a league final before, we know we’ve to be on our game.”
Ultimately, it’s a third consecutive Munster title success that Horgan is chasing in the coming weeks, something the county last achieved in the 1980s when they won five-in-a-row from 1982 to 1986.
The best that Cork could manage between 1999 and 2006, a period in which they won three All-Irelands, was a couple of back-to-backs in Munster.
“It’d obviously be a big thing to get and it’d obviously be what we’d love,” said Horgan. “But in our panel you’d swear we didn’t even win the last two.
“The way our team works, we honestly try to get better every year and if we can manage that we’ll be alright but if we start playing like the way we did in the first game, against Tipp, our year won’t be too long.
So we’re just going match-to-match and trying to progress as much as we can in between, that’s how we speak about it.
Winning the Munster title hasn’t done Cork any good in their subsequent All-Ireland semi-final ties in the last two seasons, losing them both.
Yet, Horgan said the plan for the summer continues to be to take the most direct route forward again.
“You can’t just turn around and say we’re not interested in winning a trophy,” he said. “People say to try to qualify in third like Limerick last year.
"But why would you not want to get to a Munster final? They’re the days when you’re a child that you go to with your Dad.
"They’re what dreams are made of, that day and all that goes with it.
"We’d bite your hand off for a place in a Munster final.”
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