Richie Hogan
By John Harrington
Kilkenny star Richie Hogan is putting his teaching career on hold for the foreseeable future so he can extract the maximum from himself as an inter-county hurler.
He finished up teaching in Belgrove NS in Clontarf, Dublin in Easter 2016, and has been living mainly off money he saved over the course of the previous seven years combined with some part-time work with a teacher-recruitment company.
And he's in no rush to be anything other than a full-time hurler for as long as he possibly can.
“I kind of flirted with the idea of job-sharing in school so you have a bit of income coming in, but, for or me, it's not even about money at all,” says Hogan
“There's some people who need money who like to be able to live that lifestyle and focus on their career and that's hugely important and the GPA are doing a huge amount of work on that.
“But it’s just not that important to me. I remember saying to one of these life coaches, ‘If I play to the age of 35 and get absolutely everything out of myself I will gladly sweep the streets for the next 50 years.’ It wouldn’t bother me in the slightest.
“But I’m lucky in the sense that I’m a teacher, I’m qualified, I can go and get a job whenever I want so it shouldn’t be that difficult if I ever decide to go back.”
A chronic back injury was ultimately what convinced Hogan he would have to sacrifice his day-job if he wanted to be able to continue hurling at the highest level for a good few years yet.
He has three bulging discs in the base of his back, two of them badly worn, which he blames as much on his years playing handball as he does hurling.
Richie Hogan has been ravaged by injuries in recent campaigns.
Those discs flared up badly during before the 2015 All-Ireland Semi-Final against Waterford, and though a couple of injections got him through that game he subsequently tore his quad, an injury he believes was linked to his back trouble.
A combination of long days on his feet at work followed by a drive to Kilkenny for training was putting his body under strain leaving him incapable of performing at his best, and ultimately that’s what convinced him to step away from his teaching job.
“100 per cent,” says Hogan. “Travelling was a big thing as well around that time. It was tough. It would depress you doing it.
“Travelling home, getting out of the car and you’re so broke up after it. I just love training. I can’t do the Michael Fennelly thing of take it easy, get it right at a slow pace.
“For my own head I’m not able to do that. I love to be able to train. I’d walk from Dublin to training I just love it so much. I can’t do that thing that he does. It becomes a bit of a head thing.
“Since I stepped away from it it's just been absolutely brilliant. I like to be able to do hurling every day. I used to do the gym sessions in the morning so I'd go to DCU and I'd do the gym session at maybe quarter past six and then go to work.
“And I'd do my hurling in the evening and then on a training day I'd travel home.
“Now I'm able to recover properly so I don't have to go to the gym at six o'clock in the morning, I can go to the gym at nine o'clock and take that break in the afternoon and then do my bit of hurling and then do a bit of yoga, core-work and work like that.
“It just makes a huge difference. And I'm at the age where, look, I'm 28, I have to look after myself properly. That's my highest priority.”
Richie Hogan is back from injury and included on the Kilkenny bench for their match against Antrim.
Despite the greater recovery time he now benefits from, his back problems haven’t gone away.
He was clearly inhibited in the Leinster semi-final against Wexford, and the longer the game went on the more his back seemed to stiffen up.
He’s had cortisone injections which didn’t work as well as he would have liked, but he says an epidural he received last week has him now feeling “like a new man”.
The defeat to Wexford in the Leinster semi-final stung, but he’s viewing the test of winning an All-Ireland title through the Qualifiers as a challenge to be relished.
'If this goes well for us, it will be the greatest year we’ve ever had,” says Hogan.
“There’s no thinking, you just go out, play your game and the best man wins.
“There’s not enough time to analyse teams, there’s not enough time to prepare because you don’t even know who you’re playing until a couple of days beforehand and it’s just a great natural way of playing the game, it’s brilliant.”
