For Patrick Horgan's unflinching protection of his Cork teams, it would be fitting for an All-Ireland win

For this odyssey of his that crosses three decades, it is human to wish glory comes visiting Horgan on Sunday. For his unflinching protection of his Cork teams, it would be just as fitting.

Sat, 20 Jul, 2024 - 06:59

John Fogarty

The Thursday before this month’s All-Ireland semi-finals, the GAA contacted Cork and Kilkenny with an unusual request.

With TJ Reid on Saturday and Patrick Horgan on Sunday standing one point shy of surpassing the 700-point mark in championship scoring, Croke Park’s match-day team sought permission to publish a tribute on the stadium’s big screens. Upon scoring, the graphic congratulating the pair on their respective achievements would appear for a few seconds.

The GAA have often been criticised for not celebrating the feats of their players enough but this was a most welcome initiative. Contacted by the boards, both players agreed to the acknowledgements and for Reid, his moment came as early as the opening minute when he converted a free he won himself.

Horgan, however, had to wait until the first minute of the second half after putting a simple free wide with close to 30 minutes on the clock. He finished the game against Limerick with five points to come within two of Reid but when he finished the first half scoreless having hit three wides Cork officials feared it had hexed their elder statesman.

Emulating Mick Mackey’s lean towards Christy Ring, Diarmaid Byrnes had a word in Horgan’s ear after that missed free but the latter denied it was sledging. “We actually get on well enough. There’s no messing out of him. I think he understands a free-taker’s mind or something like that. He was fine. We were grand.”

As Horgan proved himself to be in the second half. No, if you want to upset him criticise his team. A journalist felt the brunt of his ire 11 years ago when he intimated Clare had the upper hand in the drawn All-Ireland final.

“We got three goals; ye’re criticising us all year for not getting goals, we get three and ye’re saying they’re better than us. What are ye on about like?” he laughed indignantly.

When it was put to him that the occasion may have affected Cork, he came back: “We were up by a point, boy, how did it get to us? We were two seconds away from winning an All-Ireland; I don’t know what ye’re blowing on about, really.”

Horgan’s career has been marked by defiance and is matched by a spikiness. Nobody has defended his team more than him. At almost every opportunity, he has backed them.

Five years ago, he lambasted pundits who questioned the character of Cork. Anthony Daly had described Cork as “the flakiest team in the country”.

Horgan lashed back: “They think they know it all. They do! All the boys but they're not going to take my eyes from me. I watched the Leinster final, the '96 Leinster final on telly last week and they're gammy.

"So there's none of them fellas going to talk about us. I don't know who they all think they are. They were all there too in that situation. And they all have situations where that word could be thrown at them too. If you go digging, I'm sure you'd find it. But yeah, I saw them fellas playing and I'll leave it at that.

"It makes me angry, though. Because hurling now is not easy. Then you do something wrong and the boys above in the studio like, fucking the arrows and all of this. We don't give a shit what they say. It's just the fellas that are saying it baffle me."

Earlier in 2019, he spoke of how “people thought we were finished” after they had lost their first two league games. The criticism that was aimed at individual team-mates following the 2015 season infuriated him.

“To be honest, I couldn’t care less because it’s the same people. If you do something well the next week they will be your best friends. There is no room for it obviously and I hate seeing it. I hate seeing it happen to others.

“To be honest, I couldn’t care less what people have to say about me and I am sure whoever it has happened to on our team is the same – they don’t care either. The people that say that on social media aren’t the people who are out training four, five, six nights a week, giving everything they have to do their best for their county. I’d say fellas are strong enough to just push that aside and move on.

“It’s really annoying when you see fellas nearly crying leaving training. They can hardly move, like. Then to see that happening after probably one mistake out of a whole match. Everyone makes mistakes.”

At the start of 2017, Horgan was concerned enough to suggest the negativity had seeped into the group – “if we listen to everyone else, we’ll only stay down.”

But after winning that year’s Munster final, he took aim at the detractors. “I suppose no-one gave us any chance but it doesn't matter who gives you a chance as long as the fellas in the dressing-room believe.”

For this odyssey of his that crosses three decades, it is human to wish glory comes visiting Horgan on Sunday. For his unflinching protection of his Cork teams, it would be just as fitting.