GREATEST PLAYER WITHOUT A MEDAL
One of the most gifted talents of his generation, a Celtic Cross still eludes Patrick Horgan, hurling’s...
Horgan surpassed the Championship record of one of the greatest — Christy Ring It’s bad luck on him to be a Cork hurler during one of the county’s most fallow spells
HE should be an AllIreland winning hero. Immortalised for The Point. That moment, deep in injury time of the 2013 final against Clare when he picked up possession from Christopher Joyce’s sideline, the deftest of first touch’s took him away from his marker, his career in the blood and bandage had been building to such a moment.
The lightning fast precision of strike had been honed in the Glen Rovers hurling alley. He had the quick wrists and smooth-as-silk delivery, with the shortened back swing of a player who could make space in a phonebox. Jimmy Barry Murphy and his management team huddled together on the sideline, ready for the final whistle and to acclaim ‘Hoggy boy’. And then Clare corner-back Domhnall O’Donovan with that Sliding Doors equaliser, sent Patrick Horgan’s career on a parallel track.
Instead, the case can be made that he is now the greatest current hurler not to have an All-Ireland medal. There was one other player who fitted neatly into the same conversation — Galway’s Joe Canning — but events of last summer changed all that. And changed the perception of someone who had been a lightning rod for criticism for all the years Galway came up short.
Horgan bore the brunt of similar criticism for a time until his scoring record brokered no argument.
If there was a moment that pushed him to another level, it was being dropped by then Cork manager Kieran Kingston in the 2017 Allianz League. Speaking at the recent PwC GAA-GPA Player of the Month awards — he was honoured in June — it was easy to see how much that stung.
Asked if was it a kick he needed, he replied: ‘To be honest, I don’t know. I give Kieran an auld text every now and then saying, “thanks for that”.’ Was it hard to take? ‘Not really. I always have confidence in myself, whether someone else has it in me, I don’t know. It just went the way it did. Looking back on it, it seems like years ago. It is just weird. I’d laugh about it now with Kieran. As I say, I always tell him, “remember the time you dropped me? Nice one.” I get no reply.
‘He didn’t [pull me aside]. The team was announced and I just wasn’t on it. I remember thinking, whatever.’
Left out against Kilkenny and Waterford in rounds three and four, he has played like a man on a mission since, taking his game to another level. That same spring, he produced a sensational winner with the final puck of the game from play in the League against Tipperary, a score that capped a remarkable personal haul of 16 points.
‘The fact it [being dropped] was only League, it would have hurt more if it was Championship,’ he added. ‘You’d be telling yourself that the whole time, but obviously if you were going well enough at the time, you’d be playing. Obviously, I was doing something wrong. I just had to go out and train a bit harder.
Does that mean he needed that extra push to produce the best in himself? ‘I don’t think it does. I always have the mind of trying to be better. Since I’ve started, it has never been enough.’ In last year’s Munster final, past and present collided. By converting a free in the first half against Clare, he surpassed the Championship scoring record of one of the game’s greatest — whose statue stands proudly in Cloyne but who played out the bulk of his career with Glen Rovers — the one and only Christy Ring. That afternoon, he shot 13 points (10 from placed balls).
In the subsequent All-Ireland semi-final, when pitted against Waterford’s intricate defensive web which had sweeper Tadhg de Búrca at its central point, Horgan was unstoppable. On a day when Cork’s attacking platform broke down, he did more than any other player to carry the fight.
Of his dozen points, five came from play, from a variety of distances and angles. As Cork have put Munster titles back-to-back, he has carried that form through the current campaign.
This year’s Munster final represented another milestone — his 50th Championship appearance for Cork. Residing fifth in the alltime Championship scorer list after leapfrogging Christy Ring, look at the lustrous names ahead of him: his childhood hero Eoin Kelly, Eddie Keher, Joe Canning and, top of the list, Henry Shefflin.
The case that Horgan is the greatest current hurler without a Celtic Cross is strengthened by the company he’s keeping.
One of the first-half points he scored, in a finishing masterclass in the Munster decider against Clare’s David McInerney, was breathtaking for the level of skill. It came 16 minutes in and involved a sublime, sliced pick-up. Horgan
angled the hurley so the ball popped into his hand without breaking stride, and then slung the shot over his shoulder.
It’s hard to think of too many current hurlers who have a body of work to match Horgan’s and who are part of the same conversation. On his own team, only goalkeeper Anthony Nash comes close, a goalkeeper who helped redefine the position and dead ball striking to the extent that the penalty rule was changed.
Michael ‘Brick’ Walsh deserved all the plaudits thrown at him this summer as Waterford’s veteran cult hero broke the record for alltime Championship appearances.
Other luminous talents like Austin Gleeson and Jamie Barron have a long road still to travel in terms of their career journey. The same goes for the bulk of Limerick’s dazzling young players such as Kyle Hayes and Cian Lynch and Tom Morrissey.
Horgan just needs the All-Ireland medal to cement his status.
Cork now look to have a proper support cast. In many ways, his story mirrors Canning who won his All-Ireland when he finally had a team around him to augment his talents. It allowed the Portumna man to go out and play his own game.
‘It’s obviously everyone’s dream to get one of them,’ said Horgan of winning a senior All-Ireland medal in the tunnel after last year’s Munster final. ‘That’s still in the distance at the moment.’
And Cork fell short once more against Waterford in another semi-final.
It’s just been his bad luck to be a Cork hurler during one of the county’s longest fallow periods — coming on 13 years — in terms of lifting the Liam MacCarthy Cup.
The search goes on.