MY PALS SAY I’M A PSYCHO

Horgan: You have to be obsessed to play at top level..every decision is made with hurling in mind

home. It’s three hours a day at least – between gym, hurling, stretching. The whole lot.

“There’s so many different things you have to do to prepare. It’s crazy. So if you thought there was no hope of winning, I don’t know why you’d go at all.

“Your buddies going away for a weekend and you sitting at home because you’re training Sunday morning, if you count that as time (committed to hurling)... you’re like, ‘Hmmm, a good weekend here for me’.

“You’re cut away from everyone. People are off having a laugh, you’re not.

“You only get a certain window then to have your time. You’re playing in a month and so can’t go out.

“I do logistics with Crane Worldwide but it doesn’t affect my work. But with my friends, my family, it’s everything. Every decision is made with hurling in mind.

“If something that’s planned even comes close to interrupting hurling, it’s cancelled.

“That’s the way it’s gone. It’s nearly that if you see a fella out, you’re thinking, ‘I have it over him anyway’! It’s actually annoying in a way. It shouldn’t be like that but it is.

“Playing at the level we’re at, it’s challenging. But it’s rewarding to know that you’re able to compete with these fellas that are putting in so much time and effort themselves.

“You’re competing with them, that’s exciting enough in itself.

“It depends on what you make of it. When a fella has to stop playing, I don’t know what that fella’s going to do.

“There’s a lot of time to be filled after you stop. I just don’t know where it could be filled.”

With the Championship as competitive as it’s ever been, there’s a real possibility Horgan could retire without having won an All-ireland.

He said: “You’ve a Kilkenny team there, I don’t even know how many (winners medals) they have.

“At the end of it all, if you asked them what they’d take away from it, it’s the fellas they played with, how friendly they got with them and the different stories they have from time together.

“You’d cut off your arm for one (All-ireland). In a way they are (the be all and end all) – but in another way, I have friends playing with Cork and they’re friends for life.”