The four-year age gap means that Robert Downey didn’t play a game of hurling alongside his brother Eoin until 2021. Since then, it’s a rare day when they aren’t taking to the field together.
All the same, the pair grew up constantly pucking around on the streets and ball alleys of Cork’s northside, honing their innate interplay which fuses the Rebel team around its defensive spine.
While Eoin had Robert as a model of high performance, the older brother was not short of inspiration either. Patrick Horgan was always knocking around the Glen Rovers ball alley and would take on the teenagers once he’d outlasted his senior team-mates.
“I beat Hoggie. I remember beating him when I was quite young, actually,” says Downey of those one-touch games. “In fairness to him, he is probably the best of us, but I think I could give him a good run for it!”
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How did Hoggie take being beaten by a young buck?
“He was alright! I was nearly more surprised than him to be honest,” replies Downey.
“He’d be in there with the senior team, we might have been 13, 14, in the viewing area, watching him for hours and hours, and he’d call us in for the last two or three games.
“At that stage, the sliotar was worn out, but it gave us the bug to want to get to the levels he was at and to practise as hard as he did.
“It’s funny now, even in the off-season, I could ring him or he could ring me and there’d be a few of us going to the alley again. We always find ourselves back there.”
The influence of the hurling championship’s record scorer runs deep in the Glen.
“We were lucky we had such close access to Hoggie,” reflects Downey.
“He was our role model and I suppose there’s a reason we love it so much too and always pucking around and making up games.
“The nights we’re not training with Cork, we’re always up in the club watching Glen training. He’s always there, still down pucking around.”
Downey’s uncle, Len, grew up playing football alongside Roy Keane on Rockmount and Irish underage teams. Snooker was his father’s preferred game, but the same man was always a “mad hurling fan”.
The brothers still play a good bit of snooker alongside Hoggie and Brian Hayes. Not as skilfully as those ball-alley sessions, though. Robert estimates his highest break at 27, adding, “I could be there months and I’d say I wouldn’t get it again”.
Horgan may be 37, but he retains that youthful enthusiasm on these big days.
“I remember seeing Hoggie getting on to the bus (for the Dublin game),” says Downey. “I won’t call him old, but he’s the oldest on the team, and he was giddy, laughing. He knew: these days don’t come around too often.”
His younger brother wouldn’t remember it, but Robert has a “very vague memory” of watching at home the last time Cork captured Liam MacCarthy in 2005. On Sunday, he hopes to follow Seán Óg Ó hAilpín’s footsteps up the Hogan Stand as captain.
Pat Ryan has emphasised how this group is more player-led than ever before. In the minutes before they take to the field, the management team and subs vacate the dressingroom, leaving the starting 15 alone for a final few words.
Downey keeps it simple in those moments: “You’re just telling fellas how hard we’ve worked and just to express ourselves really.”
Downey grew up hurling at centre back for the Glen, although he was pushed up to full-forward for his final year as a Cork minor in 2017. Those attacking instincts showed when he bagged a goal-of-the-season contender in last year’s All-Ireland final defeat to Clare. On the back of their displays, the Downeys were named together on the All-Star selection.
While he’s since lifted league and Munster trophies, Robert has endured his frustrations in a year disrupted by niggly injuries. He has averaged 39 minutes per game played and missed the Waterford win entirely. That Déise clash was a far more nervous experience than if he had actually been taking part, although he had full confidence in his team-mates to extend their summer.
The preceding Limerick loss was the lowest point, though. Those lessons will set the bar for Cork’s performance on Sunday.
“We didn’t tackle hard enough. You can talk about systems and tactics and game-plans, and they are very important, but when it boils down to it, it’s the team that works hardest and tackles the most and wants the ball and wants to win will win the game at the end of the day.
“Limerick were streets ahead of us in those departments that day.”
The prize for avenging that defeat was a four-week break as Munster champions. It enabled Downey to shake off any injury worries. Despite taking a bang to the neck and cramping up towards the end, the Dublin game was the closest the centre back has come to completing 70 minutes since the league final.
Was that seven-goal exhibition as good as this team has produced?
“I’m not sure. That’s up for ye guys to talk about it really,” Downey responds. “Obviously, there’s aspects of the performance that we were thrilled with, and like with any performance, there’s things we can work on too.
“If we play like that the next day, it probably isn’t good enough to win the All-Ireland. So we’ll be knuckling down to nail things and tweak things coming into the Tipperary game.”
