We find a way – Cian Hogan

By James Hayden

Lorrha centre-forward Cian Hogan was named player of the match in the wake of a performance which saw him bag 1-3 from play in what was a memorable day from the men from Lower Ormond in the County Premier Intermediate Hurling final replay.

Hogan netted early on and added three further points from play, including the match-winning score on 58 minutes to cap off what was a very impressive performance from the Lorrha attacker.

“I am just happy to get over the line and I don’t know about getting the man of the match,” he said.

“But I think whether you are going good or going bad you just stay going and that’s what this team is all about. We just stayed going and stayed going and never gave up.

“In fairness to Thurles Sarsfields they showed the exact same qualities, and they never gave in. They showed the bottle last week with that equalising score and today we showed it and thank God we did.”

Agreeing that Lorrha’s two early goals afforded them a tonic start Cian stated that half-time his side were not happy and knew they would have to put in a savage effort and face a savage battle from Thurles Sarsfields in the second-half.

“We knew that it was going to be a savage battle in the second half,” he continued. “I don’t know what it is but shooting into the scoreboard end in Nenagh can always prove a challenge, but we put our shoulders to the wheel and Bonner, Niall McIntyre and Mike Dolan won savage balls in rucks, and it gave everyone else a boost. At the end of the day winning that dirty ball won it for us.”

Agreeing that Lorrha displayed the necessary gumption and wherewithal to dig deep and eke out a hard-earned victory, Cian said Lorrha had faced similar scenarios over the past two years.

“Go back to last year and we played Borrisokane here in this field in a county quarter-final. We were gone that day and we would have been back intermediate again this year had we not somehow found a way to win that day,” Hogan added.

“We have that belief though that if we can get possession of the ball, we have the forwards to make it pay.

We knew we had to keep going back to our mantra today and eventually we would make it pay.”

Regarding the match-winning point that sent the huge Lorrha crowd in attendance into raptures, Cian said he just knew he had to get the strike off quickly.

“It barely went over, and I just wanted to get it off as quickly as possible,” he said.

“I thought Kevin Bracken, who I coached in Maynooth, was going to pull it down. He had already pulled down a couple and I thought he was going to pull down that as well but luckily it just crept over. It was a matter of inches and look, that's the difference and at this level it is a game of inches.”

Agreeing that dual promotions in the space of two years was a huge boost for the club, Cian pointed out that sometimes a club has to hit its lowest ebb before bouncing back.

“I remember that relegation final against Burgess when we were sent down to Intermediate” he said of the game less than two years ago.

“We were ravaged with injuries, and we were very, very low and I was thinking where are we going from here especially when myself and few of the lads are over the 30 years of age mark. We were left wondering would we ever get back, but we were just so lucky that the lads came in and picked us up and built our confidence and when we started to win games it lifted us.

You can’t beat winning, and we got on a winning run and that feeds into the positivity around the group.”