Christy O'Connor on Patrick Horgan's Glen legacy: Pressure is always there, to play well, to win...  

When Patrick Horgan had a free close to the sideline to take the 2024 All-Ireland final to extra time, one of the Clare defenders reminded him of how difficult it was.

“Nah,” Horgan replied. “Easy enough, actually.” 

He always made it look like it was. 

Horgan had only been average against Limerick in the 2018 All-Ireland semi-final but when Cork had a free from 80 yards to draw the match in additional time of normal time, nobody in the ground was in any doubt that Horgan would nail it. 

He did.

It was a pattern throughout his career. When the heat and pressure was at boiling point in additional time of the 2024 Munster round-robin game against Limerick, a match Cork had to win, Horgan nailed a penalty to put Cork one point ahead.

He was so clear-headed in that moment that, as soon as Shane Kingston was fouled, Horgan placed the ball on the penalty spot so the Limerick players, who were still arguing with the referee, couldn’t distract him. 

As soon as Horgan lifted the ball, he made a tiny technical adjustment, letting the sliotar drop below his hips to make Nickie Quaid think he was going right with the shot before whipping the ball to the goalkeeper’s other side.

Horgan never felt pressure with Cork. 

The only time he did was earlier in his career when he was hoping he’d play well when he hadn’t done the same amount of work. 

The more he learned though, the more he evolved and adapted. When the work was done, Horgan knew he was going to play well.

Diligence diluted the pressure on the biggest stage but it felt completely different for Horgan with Glen Rovers. 

Especially in a county final.

“That’s where the pressure kicks in,” outlines Horgan in his new autobiography Hoggie written with Michael Moynihan. 

“All the coaches who’ve helped you all the way up, they’re depending on you, as are all the fellas you played with who don’t play on the senior team, the former players, the people in the locality – their focus is on the club, and it’s great, but you’d be conscious of that. 

"That pressure is always there. To play well, to win.” 

Factoring in the history, culture and heritage of the Glen ramped up the pressure even more. 

Coming from club that produced some of the game’s most iconic players, a place oozing and dripping with tradition and lore only increased the responsibility on players. 

It heightened expectation, but, when processed properly, that load was also a privilege that inspired confidence.

“It means,” writes Horgan, “that no matter how highly rated your opponents are, you’re always thinking to yourself, ‘We have a chance here. 

"We play to our potential and we’ll beat them’.

“Now there’s a balance to that. You can’t lean on it and let it tip into, ‘We’re the Glen, we’re entitled to win’. 

"To me it has to be, ‘We’re the Glen, this is the standard we have to set; to train harder, to work harder.”

Overdue

When the Glen last won county titles in 2015 and 2016, Horgan felt that no other team trained as hard as them. They had to when the club hadn’t won a county title in 26 years.

As soon as the players returned to the clubhouse after that 2015 famine-ending victory, Horgan was introduced to an elderly man he’d never met before. Somebody in the company of the gentleman said that he had 13 county medals.

“So you’re thinking, ‘Well this is the standard we’re up against,’” writes Horgan in the book. 

“But that’s part of the club’s attitude – you should be winning more. And in fairness, we should have won more counties.” 

Horgan has lost five county finals, with the Glen losing three in a row between 2019 and' 21. 

They weren’t the first club to suffer that fate because Ballincollig in the 1940s and Cloyne in the 2000s also lost three finals in a row.

The thought of losing in four successive final appearances now is unthinkable for the Glen. 

But the club have been in that territory before. When the Glen won their second All-Ireland club title in five years in March 1977, they cruised into the Cork final that September after annihilating Muskery and Bandon. 

But the ‘Barrs hammered them in the final and it set a pattern that the Glen found hard to break. The club lost five successive finals before finally breaking that losing sequence in 1989 when overcoming Sarsfields in the decider.

Dark days

In truth though, the real hardship was only beginning. After the Glen lost the 1991 final to Midleton, it took them 19 years to reach another county final. It took the guts of three decades for Glen Rovers to win their next title.

The Glen were back on track once again but the pain soon returned, albeit in a different form, when failing to reach the quarter-finals in 2017 and 2018. 

The club admirably bounced back again and, while the last decade has been completely different to the barren years because the senior team were so competitive during that period, relegation in 2023 made it as painful as any time in the club’s storied history.

The Glen have really shown their class and resilience by reaching a county senior final so soon after that difficult experience. 

If anything, it was the making of this team.

“Relegation had been a low, but, in hindsight, I preferred to get that kick and to rebuild immediately rather than spend years struggling to say in the top flight,” wrote Horgan. “Lesson were learned.” 

They have certainly been put to good use. But another huge exam is coming on Sunday week.