![\"Hoggie,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/5244424_10_articleinlinemobile_9781804584941_5642750300.jpg\" "\\"Hoggie,")
Hoggie, by Patrick Horgan with Michael Moynihan<\/p>\nWE WERE beaten in a few finals, but in getting to those finals we played different ways.<\/p>\n
The first thing Pat Ryan drove into us when he came in was that you had to give everything. There was no point in standing around and hoping it was going to happen for you; you had to make it happen. Try your absolute hardest.<\/p>\n
Run until you drop. It grew and evolved from there. There was a great connection with the team, and among the full-forward line. It was a great place to be.<\/p>\n
That (Munster Championship) game against Limerick in 2024 in P\u00e1irc U\u00ed Chaoimh was as big as any final we ever played. It was win or we were out, so, in some ways, it was like a final.<\/p>\n
We had a two-week break after our first two games, which we\u2019 d lost. For a lot of teams, it would have been a depressing prospect: lost two and then facing the best team in the country. Snookered.<\/p>\n
But Pat was very clear early in the first week of preparation. He told us how we were going to beat them and why we were going to beat them; there wasn\u2019t even a slight doubt about it.<\/p>\n
He never blinked, he never contradicted himself, he just said, \u2018We\u2019re going to do this and this is how it\u2019s going to end up. We\u2019re going to play better hurling than them. \u2019 And we did. The way it went, in the end, it was a exciting finish, but we should have had it won before that.<\/p>\n
We were a fair bit ahead of them.<\/p>\n
Now, when he said, \u2018We\u2019re going to beat them, \u2019 did he really see much weakness in Limerick? I don\u2019t think so, but he was so convincing, so persuasive, so sure, that we never doubted him. The specifics were that we\u2019 d have too much pace, that we\u2019 d be pulling them all over the field, and we did that for a long period. We were going to run, and we were going to have them on the back foot by putting their full-back line under pressure if we could, because they build from there.<\/p>\n
To be fair, they came back into it \u2013 helped by a couple of soft enough goals we gave away \u2013 and when Aidan O\u2019Connor got that point out on the wing in the last minute to put them two points up, it was a grim enough feeling. We were looking up at the scoreboard and thinking, \u2018We\u2019ve played all the hurling here but we\u2019re still two points down. \u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
But then Pa hit a serious puck-out to find Shane Kingston \u2013 it was such a ballsy puck-out \u2013 and Shane just took off. He was the only fella who could have done what was needed that night, soloing half the length of the field, flicking the ball over the heads of fellas with four or five All-Ireland medals.<\/p>\n
When they whipped him down and the referee gave the penalty, the noise in the stadium was unbelievable. It was so loud that I found it hard, for a few seconds, to stay focused on the game, on what I had to do next.<\/p>\n
What helped me was the fact that the Limerick players started pleading their case with the referee, so by the time they turned around, I had the ball on the spot for the penalty, so they couldn\u2019t really come over and try to distract me.<\/p>\n
I had my own reason for moving fast with the penalty.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t that I wanted it over and done with and finished; instead I didn\u2019t want to give Nickie Quaid, the keeper, a chance to react to how I was shaping up to take the shot.<\/p>\n
Hoggie, by Patrick Horgan with Michael Moynihan<\/p>\n
It was always in my mind that, if I was taking a penalty, I\u2019 d make it as hard as I possibly could for one of them to read me. A good keeper will see by the way you shape your body, as you lift and strike, which direction you\u2019re going to hit the ball, and that\u2019s a big advantage when their reflexes are so good to begin with. It\u2019s a little like baseball, where you have that fraction of a second to begin swinging when the ball is thrown or else it\u2019s gone past; a hurling keeper has to be moving almost before the ball\u2019s been struck for a penalty.<\/p>\n
I lifted the ball and left it drop below my hips, to show that I was going right with the penalty \u2013 and then whipped it across to the other side. That also meant that he had to bring the hurley across to the other side of his body.<\/p>\n
People think you have a big advantage for the penalty with just one in the goal nowadays, that the odds really are in your favour as the taker. But it\u2019s a long way out, and if the keeper picks the right side, he has a very good chance of saving it. Someone that doesn\u2019t play the game may think, \u2018Wow, the ball\u2019s going a million miles an hour\u2019 , but it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n
If you have a good eye for the ball, you\u2019ll stop it pretty easily.<\/p>\n
When the ball hit the net that night in the P\u00e1irc the place went bananas. It erupted.<\/p>\n
I was standing 20 metres from the goal and the red on the Blackrock End terrace seemed to explode into my face; it just filled the eyeline completely. I\u2019 d have loved to have taken a picture of it.<\/p>\n
Afterwards, I said something like, \u2018How hard could it be to score when you were shooting into the terrace and there were maybe 15,000 people wanting you to score?\u2019 It was a great feeling.<\/p>\n
But it still wasn\u2019t over after that goal. We were only up by a point, and you couldn\u2019t help but think, \u2018They\u2019ll manage a point somehow here and it\u2019ll be a draw, and we\u2019ll be out. \u2019 But, in fairness to Shane Barrett, the puck-out broke and he won a great free out by the sideline when he got a slap down across the head. I went out to take it. I was in no hurry, walking out at my ease, but I\u2019ll never forget the noise that was coming down from the South Stand \u2013 rolling, rolling, rolling down in waves; it was like nothing I\u2019 d ever heard before. Again, it was so different that it distracted me a bit: I was almost out of breath when I got out to where the free was to be taken.<\/p>\n
Pat was there, and we actually had a bit of a chat when I picked up the ball.<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019ll go for a score, will I? It\u2019ll go dead anyway. \u2019 \u2018Be careful, \u2019 he said. \u2018What if it hits the post and stays in play?\u2019 He was thinking of everything, as usual. And he was right.<\/p>\n
It was just a dream, the whole night.<\/p>\n
![\"BANG:](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/5248483_5_articleinlinemobile_2813126_1_.jpg\" "\\"BANG:")
BANG: Cork’s Patrick Horgan nails the game-winning penalty in their epic Munster SHC tie with Limerick in P\u00e1irc Ui Chaoimh in May, 2024. Pic: Stephen McCarthy\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n
***\u00a0<\/p>\n
GOING back to talks we had with performance coach Gary Keegan over the years, one thing he always said was to be careful. \u2018Be careful how you think, because you are listening. Be careful how you talk to yourself, because you are listening.\u2019 What that means is that, when you\u2019re at training, you can talk yourself up.<\/p>\n
\u2018I love this.\u2019 \u2018I love the big moment.\u2019 \u2018Taking frees in front of this many people is easier than taking them in front of no one at all.\u2019 When you say those things, they\u2019re going in, taking root in your mind. Over time \u2013 obviously with the help of Gary \u2013 you begin to convince yourself that these are the sort of moments that you want. Otherwise, why are you training? Why are you putting in a massive effort for months, years at a time? It doesn\u2019t make sense if you don\u2019t want those big moments.<\/p>\n
The second he started talking, we were hooked. It\u2019s simple, a lot of what he said, but you recognise it in yourself straight away. He might say, \u2018You\u2019re thinking of things too much,\u2019 and you\u2019d say to yourself, \u2018I am \u2013 I am thinking of games probably a bit too much and burning up energy.\u2019 But he doesn\u2019t only tell you how you think, he\u2019s also telling you how not to think.<\/p>\n
One of the first things he said to us was to close our eyes for five minutes and to think about the black in front of our eyes. Before you know it, your work, your training, family \u2013 all sorts of things \u2013 are popping into your mind. You realise just how little control you have over that. What you get from Gary, over time, is some control over it. Gary\u2019s way is to get you in the moment, with exercises to help you do that.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s also where the detail comes into it. For instance, he would have you look at your position and look at what you\u2019re lifting in the gym and ask: \u2018Is everything you\u2019re lifting in the gym transferring to the field, to your movements, your power, your play?\u2019 It can\u2019t be a case of lifting in the gym for the craic, and then going to the field and training for the craic. The lifting in the gym, the running \u2013 in fact, all your training \u2013 has to be aimed towards what you want your performance to look like on the field.<\/p>\n
If you dream of a perfect performance for a corner-forward or a half-back, then you should go right back to the starting point for that. Where do you start? How do you train? How do you think? How do you eat? How do you sleep? And soon it became a case that every movement you were making during the day was geared towards that goal. All because he made it so simple.<\/p>\n
He also spoke of how you\u2019ve got four performance windows: your strength and conditioning, your skills, your tactical side and your diet. But within each of those windows, you could have fifteen or twenty one- or two-per centres. And every day you get up, you look at them and ask yourself: Am I eating the right thing? How long did I sleep? What am I doing in the gym? What skills am I doing? What thinking am I going to do in my designated five to ten minutes a day?<\/p>\n
He just took over how the dressing room thought, and that was something we\u2019d never experienced before.<\/p>\n
There was some talk about the fact that Gary was away with the Lions in Australia for the All-Ireland final in 2025, and I know there were people unhappy that he wasn\u2019t around the team the day of the game. That misread the situation totally. He\u2019d have never been in our dressing room. He did his work over the years with us long before any game \u2013 with his slides and his notes, with one-to-ones with players.<\/p>\n
And while he was away in Australia he\u2019d have done plenty more one-to-ones with Cork players as well \u2013 in the middle of the night, too, because of the time difference. Gary had a relationship with players, so you could send him a message and say, \u2018I\u2019m thinking this, how do I get out of that mindset?\u2019, and he\u2019d set up a chat and put you on a completely different route.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve never met anyone like Gary. You\u2019d hear a lot of things about performance coaches and advisers, but he\u2019s the man. An extraordinary guy, he changed how I think about hurling 100 per cent.<\/p>\n
High performance has to be how you think. You could have the best facilities to prepare in, but you can go in and give a six-out-of-ten quality session. Or you can say, \u2018I have a shitty training shed over there with a leaky roof, but I\u2019ve got a high-performance mindset and I will train with that mindset.\u2019 That\u2019s more important than a huge building.<\/p>\n
\n *This is an abridged extract from Patrick Horgan’s autobiography, ‘Hoggie’, published by Gill Books and in shops from October 8th. It will be officially launched at Glen Rovers Hurling Club at 8pm the same evening, all welcome.\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
\n Patrick will also be signing books at Easons on Patrick Street in Cork from 12pm on Saturday October 10th.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WE WERE beaten in a few finals, but in getting to those finals we played different ways. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2110,1965,1964,61,60,112],"class_list":["post-643504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-cork-sport","tag-hurling","tag-cork-gaa","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}