Cork v Tipperary: Patrick Horgan's example paved way for Downey brothers

After Cork’s opening Munster SHC draw with Clare, when Peter Duggan was instrumental in the home side’s second-half comeback, a narrative developed that Eoin Downey couldn’t mark a big man.

Never mind that Cork led by nine points when they were reduced to 14 men or that Duggan had been on the pitch during the first half, it was a stick to beat the Glen Rovers man with.

Naturally, after John Hetherton was influential as Dublin beat Limerick in the All-Ireland SHC quarter-final, there was a worry in some quarters that he would prove troublesome for Downey and Cork but that proved not to be the case.

Downey’s older brother Robert is well-placed to assess his sibling’s strengths and weaknesses, not least as they anchor the Cork defence together. They key for Robert is that Eoin was not affected by any outside noise and continued to do his own job.

“Look, fellas will have their own opinions but I don’t think Eoin looked into that for a second,” Robert says.

“He gets plenty of competition out there, marking our fellas. I think in fairness to him, he would have heard that narrative going around but wouldn’t have paid much heed to it.

“I was happy for him, he played well, in fairness.”

That last line is about as effusive as an Irishman would ever get about his brother. While Robert and Eoin have become linchipins for Cork, it is only in recent years that they have lined out on the same team.

"My first game with Eoin was when we got hammered by Douglas in the senior championship in 2021, he was midfield,” Robert says.

He’s 22 now; there’s three and a bit years between us, so we wouldn’t have played together before senior. 

"It’s great to have your brother playing alongside you.”

JOB TO DO

Familiarity certainly brings a greater understanding, Robert feels – and there is less of a need to worry about hurt feelings when robust instructions have to be imparted.

“Yeah, it does, definitely,” he says.

“He understands me, I understand him. But, at the end of the day, regardless of if we’re brothers or not, we’re out there and we have a job to do.

“We’re trying to do it as best we can. I suppose he might find it a bit easier to eff me out of it and vice versa but we do get on very well on the pitch and off it.”

Along with middle brother Tom, the Downeys all still live at home. Cork selector Wayne Sherlock – no slouch as a defender in his own playing days – has commented on how the Downeys are never seen without a hurley in hand.

Robert feels that the influence of Patrick Horgan had a role to play.

“We actually moved house there about a year ago,” he says, “we are only a stone’s throw from the Glen club, but we would always have the hurley in our hand since we were small.

“All our childhood would have been spent down in the Glen club with our friends. Our best friends would be from Glen and school as well.

ROLE MODEL

“When I was growing up, Hoggy was around with a hurley in his hand, 24/7, so he was our role model and I suppose there’s a reason we love it so much too and are always pucking around and making up games.”

The one constant game is the hurling version of squash in the Glen’s alley, in which Downey managed to beat Horgan while still quite young.

“I was nearly more surprised than him to be honest!” he laughs.

“But even for him to [play with us] – I just remember as young fellas he’d be in there with the senior team. 

We might have been 13, 14, in the viewing area, watching him for hours and hours and he’d call us in for the last two or three games.

“At that stage, the sliotar was worn out. We’d play with him for the last two or three games, but it gave us the bug to want to get to the levels he was at and to practise as hard as he did.

“And it’s funny now, even in the off-season, I could ring him or he could ring me and there’d be a few of us going to the alley again. We always find ourselves back there.”