8 September 2013.
That point.
No. Not that one.
The one before it.
Seconds left on the clock, Hoggie under pressure, running away from goal, over the shoulder… over the bar. A score to grace any occasion. A score worthy of winning any final.
What happened afterwards is well known. Not just what happened three minutes later, or three weeks later, but what has happened in various ways every year since to Cork hurling and Patrick Horgan.
Horgan played his first match for the Cork senior hurlers in early 2008. He was still a teenager. They were fractious times. The second strike had ended but there was bad blood and few bandages in Cork GAA circles. The focus was not on hurling.
Still. The future must have looked bright to a young lad from the Glen. Cork had contested four of the previous five All-Ireland finals, winning two. They had three in the bag from the past nine years. With 30 All-Irelands they were still top of the roll of honour – albeit jointly now - with Kilkenny. A talented 19 year old from Cork wouldn't have been considered cocky to have presumed he’d win a few.
By the time 2013 came around it was already clear that things could no longer be taken for granted. The Cody army had battered most opposition and what uprisings Kilkenny couldn’t quell weren’t coming from the Rebel County. The arrog….confident old credo of "We are Cork" more of a threadbare blanket than a rallying cry in the modern era.
2013 was an aberration. Two proud counties battling each other almost to a standstill. But history would show that it was, at most, a middleweight fight. In a non-Olympic year the heavyweights took the year off. Clare haven’t been back since. Cork once, but in retrospect they would maybe prefer if they hadn’t.
So what of the teenager from 2008. At 25 years old in 2013 he was in his prime. He was Cork’s top scorer in both the drawn game and the replay. With the responsibility of free-taking on top of leading the line, he almost always was. It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough any of the years before that and it hasn’t been any year since.
He’s 36 years old now. He has played inter-county hurling in three decades. He’s likely to become the top scorer in the hurling championship history this afternoon. But still no Celtic Cross.
As the years went by and the barren period became a crisis and the crisis went on so long it became normality he dogged it out. In recent years whispers about age occasionally became louder. Early this summer they became shouts. Three starters from the Cork 2013 team started the 2024 Championship. It didn’t go well. Patrick Horgan went back to the well – again – and came back with one more last hurrah.
And what a hurrah it has been, from a summer that promised so little in the early weeks. A summer of such lows and such highs.
Waterford.
Clare mark one.
And then two of the greatest ever of Cork hurling days in one summer but still nothing won. Still no Celtic Cross for Patrick Horgan.
So the wheel turns. It’s Clare again. Shane O’Donnell again. Tony Kelly again. They both have one. If poetic justice was real there would only be one winner but it isn’t. They’re not the whipping boys of anywhere anymore.
In Hog we trust but we don’t trust the hurling Gods. He’ll have to win it for himself.
"We are Cork" is dead and gone. It’s with Seanie in the grave.
Watch the All-Ireland Hurling Championship final, Cork v Clare, on Sunday from 2.15pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to commentary on RTÉ Radio 1