YOU GET THE sense that Patrick Horgan and, indeed, the whole Cork squad are sick of people talking about their lack of goals in this year’s All-Ireland SHC.
The full forward scored his side’s first goal of the Championship on Sunday when he bore down on the Dublin goal before dispossessing Gary Maguire and flicking the sliotar into an empty net.
Speaking after the game, Horgan said:
“Everyone is on about us not getting goals but look any game we played in this year how many goals were scored against us?
“We got a goal today, they got a goal. We got more points.
“I don’t know what the fuss is about no goals, there are not going to be many goals scored in games like this because there is so little space and fellas are so fit that they will do what they have to.”
That small gripe aside, Horgan still enjoyed the game:
“Yeah, looking at the scoreboard it looked to be a thriller, we would be up by a point and then they would rattle over a couple of points, then they would up be a point.
“When they got the goal the roof nearly came down but we kept tipping away and tipping away and we were consistent with our scoring right through the game.
“Thankfully we got our scores at the right time and we drove on towards the end.”
Horgan also played down the incident with Liam Rushe that many commentators said was worthy of a sending off.
“I think he cut across me and what happened was that my hand was hooked around him and I could not get it out. The ref blew for a free and I think the reason he threw it in was for retaliation but it was just a small knock on the hand so it was no big deal.
“He was probably swinging back to make a bit of space for himself and he did not probably mean to hit me. It was only a small tap on the hand so I would not expect him to get a red card for something like that.”
As for the actual sending off, the full forward didn’t initially realise what had happened.
“I did not even know what happened out there, because there was a yellow card given and I turned away and the next thing I heard the crowd going crazy.
“As I said before, if you go down to 14 men with the way the game has gone it is very hard to play with 14 men, it is gone so physical and fitness is such a big factor now.”
And while the Glen Rovers club man doesn’t mind who Cork get in the All-Ireland final, he’s just happy to be there:
“It is hard to believe that we will be in an All-Ireland final in four weeks. We probably won’t realise it until later on but we are over the moon with it.”
