Patrick Horgan: 'Coaching 20s won't replace playing but it's a start'

Patrick Horgan was this week announced as the latest member of Noel Furlong’s Cork U20 management team for 2026

Thu, 27 Nov, 2025 - 07:00

John Fogarty

Patrick Horgan insists his new coaching role with the Cork U20 hurlers will not fill the void left by playing for the county.

After 18 seasons, the all-time championship scorer announced his senior inter-county retirement in September and was this week confirmed as the latest member of Noel Furlong’s management team for 2026 where he will join former team-mate Dónal Óg Cusack as part of the coaching ticket.

It's a quick return to the inter-county scene, albeit at a lower grade, for the 37-year-old but he maintains it will not help him transition in retirement.

“Not really because nothing is going to replace playing hurling, it’s the best thing you can do.

“I suppose just the position I’m in, I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think I could add something to players or help them out. If they needed help on any specific thing, there is a big jump from U20s to senior, so if I can add something to make that step a little bit easier for them well then I’d like to do that.”

The Glen Rovers man feels he can make more of a contribution than he would with a club. “I think it would have been a lot harder of a transition to go into training an underage team, say, in the Glen. That's something my dad probably would have always said, 'Oh go down to the underage there'. I'm like, 'That would be the hardest thing of the lot'. Because that is something I have absolutely no clue about.

“With this role, it's something very close to what I've experienced myself in the last couple of years where you have players right at that (elite) level, just looking to play the best they can play, looking how to be the sharpest they can be, how they can do a lot of little things on the field.

“And it's something I would have experienced so sharing that with them is, in a way, it's a smaller jump than dropping down the age groups and going to an underage team. What could I share with them that I've done? It doesn't kind of match up.”

Horgan admits he was surprised when he received the call from Furlong. “Obviously, it wouldn't have been something I thought I would have ever got, but I suppose that's down to me doubting myself as well.

“I would never think something like that would come to me, I never thought I would get the chance to do it but, as soon as I did get the chance, it's very easy to think about do you want to be a part of a high-performance unit again in a different way.

“The season starts soon enough and it finishes… is it middle of May if everything goes right? So, it's a very short season and I suppose there will be a lot of learnings in that so it definitely is a good start for me and a good introduction to it.

“It's something it's hard to say no to, because it's a big position and that level of hurling is something I'd be passionate about as regards the coaching side of it anyway – coaching to get better as opposed to training to train.”

Retirement has been a case of so far, so good for the Glen Rovers man. “The one thing I’ll say about playing, the time you give to training with the team is a very small percentage of the week even though it’s still your three, four hours three or four times a week minimum.

“But it’s outside it is the thing that takes up so much of everything, you can’t do anything. You can’t go to a friend’s party, you have to watch what you are doing with your sleep and your eating, you are trying to think who you are talking to, it impacts so much of it and that’s something I’m kind of happy to be away from it. Just kind of be normal for a while.”

* Patrick Horgan was speaking at the launch of AIB’s support of this year’s GOAL Mile. Register for the charity event with the chance to win up to €7,000 for your GAA club (https://goalmile.org/aibgaacompetition)