Cork stalwart Patrick Horgan retains grá for clash of the ash

Patrick Horgan is listing off the reasons why he still loves his hurling after all these years and the dream of someday winning an All-Ireland is not chief among them. If that was his sole reason for playing then he would have retired long ago.

He turns 34 next month, not ancient by modern hurling standards, and there's nothing to yet suggest that this his 15th consecutive senior season with Cork will be his last. Horgan made his senior debut in 2008, which at times feels like a lifetime ago, and as Cork's all-time highest scorer in hurling history he's rarely had an idle game along the way.

Three Munster titles and four All-Stars remain his top rewards, and last summer's All-Ireland final defeat – to Limerick – was something he'd experienced before, when Cork lost the 2013 All-Ireland final to Clare after replay.

“I’ve said it before, my mind will never change on this, and it’s not because I don’t have an All-Ireland, because I’d love one,” he says “But if the only reason I was playing was to win an All-Ireland I wouldn’t be playing. Because you can’t do that, it’s gone too serious, the training load, everything needs to be prepared, diet, everything. So if you don’t enjoy it you’re actually wasting you time, and I love the process of it all, eating properly, showing up for training, loving every minute of training, love striking ball, everything about hurling is what I love.

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“If it was just to win, it would have been a fairly disappointing 15 years, but I’ve actually enjoyed every year, apart from maybe one or two when we would have went out early, didn’t get a chance to drive on. But in general I just love hurling, and that’s what keeps me going.”

Last Saturday's league final defeat to Waterford meant back-to-back final defeats for Cork

“Sometimes I get reminded all right, about being here since 2008, it just doesn’t feel that long. With a young panel, when we go training, a lot of boys are early 20s, and sometimes you think you’re around there too, another seven or eight years to go. Then you remember you’re 34 next month.”

Last Saturday's league final defeat to Waterford meant back-to-back final defeats for Cork, just two weeks out from their Munster championship opener against Limerick, who beat them twice last summer. Horgan is certainly not suggesting that losing finals is in any way a pleasurable experience, although there are still positives. Cork, he feels, certainly made progress during the league, keen to move on from the final defeat of last year.

“Obviously disappointing to lose a game, but we look back on the league, did we get what we wanted out of it? I think we did. A lot of new players got a lot of time, show they’re up for, and there was a lot of positives to take overall, even the other night, with six or seven minutes to go we got it back to four points.

“And in a way, when you get to a final you want to perform, and we clearly didn’t. It hurts that way . . . but you can see a bit of consistency.

“We take the lessons from every game, and getting off to a good start in the Munster championship is so important. You have to be on your game, all four games will be really tough. Limerick we know are a savage team. They probably came back a bit late thus year, after their holiday, but overall they are the team to beat again this year, no one can hide from that, they can’t hide from that.”

Horgan is bringing that long love of hurling into a new side venture, co-founding Pro Hurling, Ireland’s first hurling e-Academy: aimed at boys and girls aged five to 16, the web-based programme is developed to improve the skills of the game, presented by Horgan along with fellow intercounty players Lee Chin, Noel McGrath and Amy O’Connor

“It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a good while,” he says. “And [it] stems a small bit from my own nieces and nephews; anytime I’d call up they seemed to be glued to the PlayStation or Xbox or iPad, they love hurling too. We’re not going to get rid of the iPad, but maybe if we got some exciting videos for them to watch they might go out the back and practice, get away from . . . [the] screen.

This is something to focus on the specific skills, the basic skills, that need to be done right

“Part of what we’re doing as well is videos of fundamental movements, once a month as well, and we’ll [also] have live videos. We always said we don’t want to take away what they’re learning in their clubs, which is very important, with their own coaches. But this is something to focus on the specific skills, the basic skills, that need to be done right.

“Sometimes we get away from the basic skills, and hurling has turned into some crazy sport, but it’s not. It’s the same game we always knew.”

One dislike about the game that Horgan has spoken about before is the new yellow sliotar, which he again claims lacks some of the consistency of the traditional white one.

“I couldn’t care less if they were pink, but they’re just not the same, it’s not just the colour. They just don’t play the same. I don’t think the weight is evenly distributed in the middle of the ball and the skin is 100 per cent not the same on the outside. If you catch a white one, you call feel the grip sticking to your hand, whereas the yellow one is kind of shiny. Nobody is going to say to me they’re the same, because they’re not.”