Richie Hogan is looking out over Croke Park, still wondering how on earth he ended up hurler of the year for his performances around midfield – not somewhere closer to goal.
For as long as he’s played hurling with Kilkenny – and for most of his 26 years, actually – Hogan considered himself a forward. Cut from the same cloth as DJ Carey, they said, with an eye for a score that frequently deceived the eyes of those around him.
He scored 1-1 in the 2011 All-Ireland final, which earned him his first All Star, at corner forward, and that always deemed his default position.
He’d never planned on playing anywhere else; it was only in the league game against Tipperary earlier this year, when Kilkenny were trailing by 10 points, that he found himself almost casually dropping back.
“Brian Cody never even asked me to play there,” says Hogan, who also won a second All Star this year, this time at midfield. “It was that league game against Tipp. I’d been out injured for 10 or 12 weeks, with a cartilage problem in my knee, and had missed all the early season stuff.
“We were losing by 10 points or so at half-time, and they just switched things around, and literally just called my name out to midfield. . . It was going well for me for a while and I suppose as long as it was going well I was left play there. Then it just kind of became normal by the time the championship came around.”
Defensive craft
Indeed by then Hogan’s transformation was complete – although he was still able to prove his versatility by moving forward, most crucially in the drawn All-Ireland final against Tipperary. He also demonstrated his attacking prowess in the semi-final win over Limerick, his goal turning that game in Kilkenny’s favour.
“I’d never played out at midfield before in my life,” he says, “not at any grade. I was always somewhere in the forwards, between centre forward and full forward. And I always pictured myself as a forward. But then the way hurling is gone you need the same attributes in every position . . .
“So I don’t really see myself as anything, in terms of position. I’m very comfortable playing anywhere from eight to 15. And if I’m called out 15 or called out 8, I’m just as happy.
“But I suppose I would always think like a forward. Sometimes that can be a bad thing, in the middle of the field, because when I have so much space from 65 yards outs, my first instinct is to shoot.”
Like the rest of his Kilkenny team-mates (with the exception of those playing with Ballyhale Shamrocks in Sunday’s Leinster club final) Hogan is enjoying the off-season, although conscious too that doesn’t mean locking away the boots and the hurl until 2015.
“The days of letting yourself go in the winter time are long gone. It’s really important, especially for myself, to come back in some good shape come January when the serious stuff happens again. We’ll get back to it in January after the team holiday (to Miami, over the New Year). But we’re not stupid. We all know that we have to do our own work and we always do.”
Natural replacements
Kilkenny will be looking for natural replacements for the now retired Tommy Walsh, Brian Hogan, Aidan Fogarty and goalkeeper David Herity, but will they also be looking to replace Henry Shefflin?
“I’ve been asked 100 times since September whether he’s staying on,” says Hogan. “But really, we should just be enjoying it while he’s here, like in Sunday’s club final, rather than just asking when is he going. But he’s definitely one of the greatest hurlers of all time. And Henry is still savagely hungry.
“When he does get a chance to start out there, every game is like an All-Ireland to him. Hunger is the main thing he has, and determination and he has that bit of experience. I’ve picked up as much as I could from him.”
