FRANKIE HORGAN speaks in calm, self-assured tones. An easy interviewee he doesn’t betray many nerves ahead of Sunday’s TSB Cork SHC final. The kind of fellow who you would imagine might make a speech that everybody would listen to just before they hit the field on Sunday, but apparently he’s not into the speech making.

"No we leave that to the captain and the coach. I’m not too bad with the old nerves but there’s bound to be a bit of that on Sunday. At the moment I’m just enjoying the whole experience because I won’t have too many more of these." Which is precisely the opposite of what he thought when Erins Own won their only county in 1992. That team was young and Frankie at 25 was one of the oldest and hope was everywhere.

"It feels like a long time since 92 but at the time we thought that with the youth of the team that we’d come back and win another one or two. We won a few first rounds all right since then but didn’t go much further. It just didn’t materialise like we expected. Even then I was probably one of the older guys on the team - there was only two or three lads older than me."

Now at 33, he is the oldest on the team, one year older than his captain Tony O’Keeffe. There are only six survivors chasing the second medal - a medal that looked unlikely up to this year. So what kept a guy like Frankie Horgan going during the hungry mid to late 90s. You have your ups and downs and we had two or three years there where things didn’t go so well but then you have a good year and that sort of keeps you going till the next year.

"At the moment this team is really young and if we can win on Sunday and if things are handled right then I think this team can be around for a while, but luck comes into it as well."

And ability. A lot of the Erins Own youngsters have tasted the limelight already with various underage teams but Frankie had his day in the sun too. He didn’t make the excellent Cork minor team of 1985 but he did appear on the corresponding U21 team three years later - a team that went all the way to All Ireland honours and had the unusual distinction of trouncing Kilkenny in the final. It was the forward line on that team which was most impressive. John Fitzgibbon, Mark Foley and Dan O’Connell in the full forward line. Micky Mullins, Ger Manley and Frankie Horgan in the half forward line. And though he was far from being the best known of that sextet nobody did a bigger job for Cork that year than he. His style being unorthodox was probably the reason why he never graduated beyond playing a few league games for the senior team. Cork teams hardly ever feature unorthodox hurlers. Other counties use them to great effect but for some reason, Cork don’t. But there was always the club who loved his speed, strength and ability to take on a defence with mazy solo runs. He hasn’t taken off on so many this year but did pick up one memorable one against Imokilly in the drawn game racing 50 yards before shooting over. But his position today no longer lends itself to solo running. Midfield is a place where you’re meant to leave the ball travel. That’s what he’s been doing and the selectors are happy.

"My fitness went down a bit last year, so I was pushed into corner forward. This year I started at left half forward. The training has been a bit harder and I feel a bit fitter so I’m out at midfield now. But that was the position I played in a lot when I was younger. The young players on our panel have given everybody a new lease of life. It makes a big difference to a team having young fellas throwing themselves about all over the pitch. It encourages you to keep going a bit longer. As for how much longer that will be, I don’t know. I’ll see what happens on Sunday and take it from there"