THE HOGGY DEW

Cork legend proud of his record-breaking achievements

- GARRY DOYLE

THERE are players who talk around retirement and players who talk through it.

Patrick Horgan does neither.

At 37, a month on from walking away as the greatest marksman hurling has seen, he sits back, considers the question and delivers the answer with the same clean, uncomplicated strike he spent 18 seasons perfecting "What am I proud of? The whole lot," he says. Not boastful.

Simply factual.

Maybe that's the only way a man with 18 seasons behind him can talk about survival because that's what it is at that level.

Survival of the fittest and the most resilient. Horgan knows it.

"I feel very lucky," he says.

"Lucky to have stayed fit." Lucky to have lasted long enough to do what so few could: score more than anyone who ever lifted a hurl.

Thirty-two goals and 683 points in Championship hurling. Another 26 and 674 in the League. Combined, the numbers look almost comical, like something generated by a child mashing buttons on a scoreboard. They are real. They are his. They will soon belong to someone else.

"Oh, it'll soon be gone," he says of his scoring record. "I'm happy to have it when I go. As of now, it's nice to have. But it'll be gone in a few months." TJ Reid is closing in. Horgan knows it. The sport knows it.