"Fellas are stretched," says Patrick Horgan. He's far from the first hurler or footballer to be thinking as such at this time of year.
Horgan feels it's not the manager's whip which is drawing every last drop from the players. Rather, he feels, it is the players themselves who are increasing the squeeze on their free time.
"You’re out of work, you’re not going home you’re going straight to training or straight to the ball alley. It’s the players themselves that are driving it, there's no one else driving that because everyone wants to be as good as he can be, like.
"If you're going out and getting a lesson off a fella in a game, you’re getting beaten and you don't want that to happen too often so you’re going to put more time in. That brings the standard up higher and the fella who’s winning wants to stay on top and he’s training hard. Tell me a player that's happy with being beaten, there's no one.
"We lost last year against Waterford so we’re going to try and up it again this year. We're obviously going to put a percentage onto what we did last year when we're with our team.
"Then when you’re at home doing your own thing you’re thinking that you haven’t done enough, I have to do more. It’s the players that are doing it.
The Cork hurler is lucky. He lives and works in his native county. The 29-year-old works in logistics with Crane Worldwide.
"Jesus they couldn't be better to me, any time I need something. They’re really good to me, you know, as much as they can be," says Horgan who was speaking at the launch of eir sports Allianz Leagues coverage for 2018.
As an increasing number of players choose teaching as a career, many believing it will give them to time to further their inter-county careers, Horgan says that in his experience it has its pitfalls - mainly during the early part of the year.
There's a lot of fellas on the panel that wouldn't find it so easy. Teachers wouldn't find it so easy. I know it sounds like a good thing that a teacher might have all the time off but a session could be called at anytime. If you're going away for the weekend and you’re called on the Friday, the teachers can’t get off, that he's happened.
Horgan does see the otherside of it. In the height of the championship, while everyone else is aching when heading to work on a Monday morning after 70 minutes of action the previous day, the teachers in the Cork squad have plenty of time to recover.
"It’s better because they have the whole summer off. I'm on about training there, you can't be late and if you can't leave early, you can book a half day from work but a teacher can’t really because they have a class to teach. That’s only for training.
"On the other hand then, they have to whole summer off, they’re handy, like. When we’re all going to work, our legs hanging off us, they’re in bed, like.
Match Night Live on eir sport - Mayo captain Cillian O’Connor, Tiernan McCann of Tyrone, Cork forward Patrick Horgan and Wexford’s Lee Chin were in Dublin as eir sport today announced details of its live coverage of the forthcoming Allianz Leagues which will see 17 games broadcast across seven weekends. eir sport, the home of Saturday night Allianz Leagues action, will feature 17 different counties over the course of its coverage.
