No Egos, No Limits: Hogan praises Harps players

THERE aren’t many men that have the aura that Ken Hogan has built for himself when it comes to hoovering up Senior Championships and he worked the oracle once again on Sunday by leading The Harps to their first ever Laois SHC.

When it was put to him that he was the man to do it, he quickly dismissed the notion and put it all back on the players themselves.

“I didn’t do it, the players did it and the team did it,” he commanded.

“We just came together at the start of the year, it was tough going out in Cullohill and we worked very hard in tough conditions.

“It’s about getting a bit of belief and believing in ourselves.

“I suppose the lads were upset about being in relegation last year and we came in with a new slate and thankfully from out point of view we got there.” The juvenile setup in The Harps is the envy of clubs across the county and Hogan again thanked them for all the work put in that led to Sunday’s win.

“There’s been great work done by all the underage coaches, the schools, every evening we go to training in Durrow or Cullohill the pitch is full with kids, camogie, ladies football, hurling, you name it.” Hogan also lauded the management team that he brought alongside him, “Brian Carroll is a coach, Dylan Murphy S&C, my own friends Conor Murphy and Noel Delaney, great men, we worked so hard but the club gave us every facility to do it and I’m just so delighted for the parish themselves to pull off this.

“To win their first ever county championship is a huge achievement for the lads and it’s all about the team.” The Harps had a brilliant opening half to the game and led by six at half time and Hogan was thankful of the additional break at half time on Sunday to help gather his players for the second half.

“It was strange at half time because it’s usually a ten-minute half time but because they were honouring the ’76 Camross team it was fifteen minutes and maybe it gave us more time to settle down,” he said.

“We weren’t leaving the dressing room until we knew we were going to finish the job and it wasn’t about county finals, it was about finishing the match.

“I’m glad we did it with a bit of grace and a bit of class, we hurled right throughout the game and gave it our best shot.” The Harps had a tough road to the final having to beat both Borris-Kilcotton and Clough-Ballacolla in knockout games, but it was the group game against Ballinakill that sticks in Hogan’s mind.

He admitted, “I find the system strange in the championship and the toughest game for us mentally was against Ballinakill, they were fighting to stay in the championship and we were fighting to get through.

“If we lost that game we were potentially out of the championship and we were so thankful to get over that one.

“You see the crowd here today and the passion in Laois hurling, there’s a lot of pluses in Laois hurling and the way they run their games.” Podge Delaney received Man of the Match honours just two days after accepting a Joe McDonagh All Star and Hogan said that Delaney had to be forced to go to the ceremony as he wished to meet up with his clubmates instead, but Hogan insisted he go to collect his award, and Hogan said that’s a testament to the lack of notions in the panel.

“The important thing about this group of players is that there’s no egos, nobody steps above and Padraic Dunne is great as a captain.

“And the experience of John Brophy and Conor Dunne, Conor Dunne what a great guy and what a man to have on a panel, a former Laois hurler.

“He had retired and came back this year to give us a dig out and he did such invaluable work in the dressing room.” The Kilkenny champions lie in wait in the Leinster SHC quarter-final, but there’s some celebrating to be done first.

“As a group of players they were so humble today and the important thing is we move forward and represent Laois with pride.

“We’ll celebrate for a few days but the most important thing is that everyone stays safe in Cullohill and Durrow.”