CATS BACK FRESHER THAN EVER
As Conor Fogarty enters his fourth year without an All-Ireland, he warns...
HE won’t forget those first few evenings as a Kilkenny senior hurler. Feeling a little intimidated and starstruck as legends like Tommy Walsh and JJ Delaney walked through the dressingroom door. The imposing figure of Brian Cody surveying all around him.
Conor Fogarty was fortunate. A few familiar faces joined him in the squad the same winter. He had played with Paul Murphy, Colin Fennelly and Paddy Hogan in the famous stripes before, at minor or Under-21 level. And of course back then, he had the comfort of his father, Martin, being in the same dressing-room, as one of Cody’s selectors and trusted confidantes — Martin is now the national hurling director.
But he was still being asked to audition for the greatest force that Gaelic games has ever known – and he was doing so at a strange time. Lar Corbett had just destroyed their bid for immortality a few months earlier and the older Kilkenny players were experiencing what it was like to come back after a Championship defeat for the first time in five years.
‘I was only a young fella when I came into the squad in 2011. It does take time to settle into it, but you don’t want it to take too long because you won’t be around for very long,’ Fogarty says with a laugh as he sits in a room looking down on a pristine Nowlan Park when they announced a renewal of the Glanbia sponsorship last week.
Later this afternoon, the pitch will be his playground as he brings his usual industrious presence around the middle third when Limerick come to town as All-Ireland champions.
‘From club and under-age hurling, everything goes up a few notches,’ he recalls of those early days. The hits are up, the speed and intensity are up. It is hugely enjoyable and growing up in Kilkenny, the only thing you want to do is put on your county shirt, but it does take time to adjust.’
Fogarty is now an established part of the Kilkenny side, the 28-year-old teacher a critical cog in the engine room. But he had to serve his time. It used to be the habit under Cody. Apprenticeships had to be served. Things changed last year, though, when seven rookies were handed their Championship debut over the course of the summer.
‘A good few young fellas came into the squad last year and a lot of them got game-time. There was great quality in them, you can see it now in the Fitzgibbon Cup. In their first year playing senior inter-county, very few players are going to come in and lord it. But every year is going to stand to them. The longer you stay around, the better you become.’
The Castlecomer native is testament to that. He may be one of the first names on the team-sheet, if there is such a thing with Cody. But he had to endure a lengthy apprenticeship. As almost everyone did.
He made his debut as a cornerback in February 2011 when Cork came to Nowlan Park for the National League. There were a few more fleeting appearances that spring and then he disappeared for the Championship. He was only a panel member that September as Liam MacCarthy was regained.
He kept his head down. Kept working. But apart from the odd Championship appearance, when Kilkenny wiped the floor with Tipperary in the 2012 All-Ireland semi-final or starting in Portlaoise when Dublin beat them in Leinster a year later, Fogarty’s first three years as a Kilkenny senior hurler were spent on the fringes.
It never crossed his mind to walk away and simply concentrate on the club. He knew if he kept showing Cody how diligent he was, that his opportunity would come.
Before the 2014 season, the manager was changing things around after a disappointing summer in 2013 and had a plan for Fogarty. Turning him into a midfielder. It is where the Castlecomer native has made his name.
If his first two Celtic Crosses came as just a member of the squad, he won his next two as a driving force of the Kilkenny machine. But he’s now entering his fourth season without tasting All-Ireland success — about as close to a famine as you can get in the Marble County.
‘There is a hunger there but there is a hunger every year,’ Fogarty insists. ‘Even after winning an AllIreland, the first thing you want to do is get back into training and go and win another All-Ireland. That is your desire, growing up. When you are younger, you want to play for Kilkenny on All-Ireland final day and you want to win it.
‘Some of us are lucky enough to have experienced that, we know the feeling of being there, and you want to get it back. All we can do is work as hard as we can, and hopefully get back there. But it is a long way away from where we are sitting, at the moment,’
Fogarty and Kilkenny looked on as the summer reached its exciting conclusion in Croke Park last July and August, but the thing is that the Cats weren’t that far away.
A slice of good fortune and they would have beaten Galway in the drawn Leinster final in Croke Park. In the All-Ireland quarter-final, they were within a couple of points of the Limerick side that took ownership of the most thrilling Championship in history. Just proves that Kilkenny are never that far away. ‘That’s it, every year takes on a life of its own,’ Fogarty says, appropriating one of his manager’s favourite phrases about every game has a life of its own.
‘Against Galway, a draw the first day and maybe it didn’t go so well for us the second day but we were close. And you see Limerick and Galway end up in an All-Ireland final and you know a small thing here and there, and that could have been us, we could have been in an All-Ireland semi-final or final. That is in the back of your mind as you move into 2019 but it is a new year and you can’t dwell on it too much, either.’
Some players find it difficult to watch games when they are not playing. But Fogarty insists that he sat down and watched the AllIreland final and enjoyed it. He knew, leaving Semple Stadium after Limerick had edged them out in the quarter-final, that John Kiely’s side would have a big say in the destination of Liam MacCarthy.
‘I had two tickets, but I didn’t travel up, I just watched it at home. I just preferred to watch it at home, on the telly.
‘It is always in the back of your mind, that you want to be out there and having played the two teams. But look, the two of them deserved to be in the final last year and unfortunately, we came up short. All we can do is try and rectify it this year.’
Home remains Castlecomer, although he teaches Engineering and Technical Drawing in Coláiste Éamann Rís in Callan where a few former and present pupils, including Noel Hickey, were among the Dunnamaggin team that became All-Ireland junior champions last weekend.
Been drawn to the engineering and technical side of things. Fogarty is clearly interested in how the tactics of hurling has evolved over the past few years. But what is of most interest to him is how congested and clogged up the middle third has become.
‘The introduction of sweepers has changed things a small bit, having to cope with that. The physicality is still there, the speed, the ball is always moving at the same pace. But probably we have moved away from the traditional style and midfield is more congested, teams are trying to flood that area.
‘But the skills remain the same. You are still trying to win your own ball, still trying to get on breaking ball. And you still have to put the ball over the bar.
‘These things come every now and again, with different tactical lay-outs and sweepers, but the basics, fundamentals, of the game will always be the same,’ Fogarty says, repeating the Kilkenny mantra.
It is what they always say but it is what they believe. And that is what makes them who they are.
‘WE CAN’T SIT AND DWELL ON THE THINGS THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN’