Patrick Horgan didn’t stay away for long. He might be wearing the hat of a selector rather than the helmet of a hurler, nonetheless in 2026 Horgan will once again be wrapped up in the blood and bandages. It’s hard to say no when Cork calls.
Horgan, who only announced his intercounty retirement in late September, was this week confirmed as a selector with the Rebel under-20 hurlers after accepting an invitation from team manager Noel Furlong.
“Nothing is going to replace playing hurling, it’s the best thing you can do,” says Horgan.
“But I wouldn’t have done it [joined the under-20s management team] if I didn’t think I could add something to players or help them out.
READ MORE
“There is a big jump from under-20s to senior, so if I could add anything at all to young fellas trying to progress to be better players and play senior for Cork, well then it’s something that I would be interested in doing.”
Having spent 18 years hurling with Cork, this has been a period of readjustment in Horgan’s life.
But the 37-year-old does not believe his former Cork team-mates will need too much time readjusting to life under new manager Ben O’Connor.
The manner of last July’s All-Ireland final loss to Tipperary has left questions as to whether the scar tissue from that defeat will impact the players in 2026. Horgan feels Cork will flip that pain and make it a motivator for the season ahead.
“I think the players there are strong enough and they’re good enough, as in they’re a savage team, to use what has happened as a bit of fuel for the year ahead,” he says.
“They’re going into next year as one of the favourites. They’re a really good side. They play a really good style of hurling, good players all over the pitch, so there’s no reason why they can’t go all the way and put that right and win one.
“In the year we are still in, they have been to the All-Ireland final, they have won the league, they have won Munster and they have played the best style of hurling all year. They were beaten by a really good Tipp team in the final.
“They are definitely one of the top three teams in the country. That is guaranteed, that is obvious.”
Horgan says he has not watched the All-Ireland final back. Nor will he.
“I actually don’t watch any matches, ever. I never watch any of our own games.”
He is content with his decision to retire, walking away with an All-Ireland medal would have been the preferred exit but Horgan does not believe one game of any season should frame a year.
“It’s never about one day. There’s only one team going to win the All-Ireland any year. Are the other 10 or 12 teams going to put their whole lives on hold and, if they don’t win it, it’s been a bad year? I don’t think it should be that way.
“They’re training with their best friends in a lot of ways, they’re in a high-performance environment. There’s going to be a lot of good things happen throughout the year so it shouldn’t be defined by the last game of the year, whether it goes your way or not.”
The storyline of his search for Liam MacCarthy glory dominated the latter years of Horgan’s career, but there was also the subplot of his shoot-out with TJ Reid for top spot in the roll of honour as top scorer in championship history.
They swapped positions regularly over the years but on retiring, Horgan exited the stage on top of the leaderboard with 32-683 (779) to Reid’s 39-641 (758). However, with Reid committing to the Kilkenny cause for 2026, Horgan believes it as an inevitability the Ballyhale man will leapfrog him next year.
“TJ is going to take it there now in a couple of months – unless I find out where he lives,” laughs Horgan.
“I’m happy to have it when I go [retired] so as of now it’s nice to have. But it’ll be gone in a few months.
“I said this when I was playing that it’s a great thing to have, it’s a great thing to be able to say that nobody ever hit the ball through the posts more.
“What else can I say about it? It’s a number that just goes with being injury-free, playing the amount of games I’ve played and just racking up that number from that. It’s something I’m delighted to have but that’s about it.”
Horgan was speaking at the launch of the AIB GOAL Mile. As part the campaign AIB is offering individuals who register for the GOAL Mile the chance to win up to €7,000 for their Gaelic games club. https://goalmile.org/aibgaacompetition
