CORK HURLING AND FOOTBALL: TOM HUMPHRIEStalks to the versatile young Cork star who defies the conventional wisdom that you can't be a dual player at the top level of the GAA in this day and age

EOIN CADOGAN is a work of fiction. He’s not a fake as such, but somebody must have made him up. He has been created as a marketing tool by some ponytailed genius down in the creative department or dreamed up by some geek looking to create a new comic-strip hero.

Eoin Cadogan can’t be real.

He’s tall and chisel-jawed, handsome enough to make any teammate look like Shrek. As such, you should be able to throw a stone up in the air and almost always have it hit somebody with a bad word to say about Eoin Cadogan. He can’t be as decent, loyal, likeable and obliging as he comes across.

And this weekend he can’t possibly play football in Derry on Saturday night and hurling in Parnell Park on Sunday. He can’t be the last of the dual players.

Or can he?

They haven’t gone away you know.

Just when you think all sports science and conventional wisdom tends towards the conclusion that you just can’t be a dual player in this day and age some young buck will leap in the air and yell, “the hell you can’t”.

Eoin Cadogan is such a heap of raw and untreated talent in both games that you expect that he could only progress in one at the expense of the other.

You look at him playing both his sports and the verdict in both codes is that he has a lot of everything but in neither does he have enough of one thing to allow him to survive. Yet he keeps improving at them both.

The graph just keeps tilting upwards and neither Conor Counihan nor Denis Walsh has gotten to the stage yet when they throw their hands in the air in exasperation and demand that Cadogan make a choice.

And with respect, genuine respect, he’s not really too worried what you think. He loves the life he lives and he lives the life he loves. This was the dream. It unfolds before him now. Wanted by Cork’s footballers on Saturday and by the hurlers on Sunday.

If you grew up as a prodigy in both codes you would cherish that idea, wouldn’t you? The next Brian Corcoran. The next JBM. You’d hear it debated in whispers from the time you were out of mini-leagues. He’s brilliant at this but he’s better at the other.

And anybody who grew up as Eoin Cadogan did would grasp such an opportunity like a lunatic. The only debate he inspired was which game he was worse at.

“Aw, I was just about fecking useless,” he says. “My dad never really played any hurling or football, but they got me involved at a young age. I was useless. At football I was atrocious, could never get my games at under-12 and under-14, under-15. I got a bit bigger. That helps with football and they starting throwing me in at full back.

“Meanwhile I was by no means any great hurler and I still don’t claim to be, but they let me at it eventually. They were always very supportive at home no matter how bad I was. So when it is like that there is no pressure to choose!”

He kept his options open in case of sudden improvement in either sport. One summer he grew prodigiously which was something. He was better (or least bad) at hurling but his height bought him more breaks in football.

“Until I grew I was 100 per cent a sub in the football. I got a call up to Seandún (the divisional side) when I was about 15, coming on 16. That was a big deal. We were playing Carrigdhoun. I was full back. In the first half my man got 3-3 off me. I was out of my depth. I said to myself what’s the point and went and asked the manager to take me off.

“I thought I was doing him a favour, but I can’t repeat what he said to me. I had no choice to play on. He saw some bit of good in me. I was getting a bit bigger and stronger. I was no genius but he saw something.

“By the age of 17 I kicked on. I got a call up to the under-21 footballers in Douglas. The club were blooding younger fellas with the senior football. On the 21s I looked very big even though I was still 16 so I was one of the ones they blooded at senior.

“I started a county semi-final at wing forward and after 10 minutes I got the task of going in on Niall Cahalane at midfield. An old dog and a young pup. That sort of thing toughened you up though. Made you a bit cuter and wiser.”

And if you were playing football on Niall Cahalane, even if he were eating you alive, why would you quit?

So to hurling.

“I wouldn’t say the hurling was much better,” he says with a sigh and a laugh. “Not too bad. I loved the hurling a bit more than the football. The main reason for that was I was so bad at the football.

“At 17 I got a call to the Cork minors. That was a lucky break. My name got around the place a bit. I was big. I’d been out with the Douglas senior footballers. So the minor footballers called me in. I kept on in there. Hanging in.

“There is an awful lot of work but you just hang in. If ever now I am talking to a kid or a young player, I would say just because you don’t get you game at under-15 or under-16 doesn’t mean you won’t progress. You can do it if you put your mind to it. Just keep going. Things fall into place.”

There have been times when it has been hard. A few years ago he found himself playing Fitzgibbon Cup, under-21 hurling and football for Cork, senior football for Cork, as well as turning out for the under-21 and senior hurling and football teams in Douglas.

“People were telling me that I would burn-out. I don’t think it is an issue with the amount I am doing now. Back then, organising myself would have burned me out quicker than playing.

“My mother was good at jotting in training times and taking phone calls during the day. You have to be here now tonight. You have to be there. I’m not an organised person. I’d want to be organising myself a bit better.”

This week he trained with the hurlers on Tuesday and the footballers on Wednesday and got named in both sides on Thursday although it will be a shock if he materialises in both places.

On a hurling week he needs to get to the ball alley in Rochestown at least twice to work on his touch with the stick.

It’s an eternal juggling act.

As for burnout he has taken the Cork route to avoiding it. A strike with the footballers and a strike with the hurlers since he came on the scene.

He grew up in Douglas, one of four kids, as the place was being subsumed into the city. The family had a small farm and the good fortune to live in a place surrounded by pitches.

“I was lucky enough to get brought up in what is left of the country. Douglas winter training pitch is just a jump over the pitch and I am in there. We are surrounded by pitches, Carrigaline and Douglas rugby clubs, Douglas Hall soccer.

“It was hard getting to all the games though, so when I was 17 they put me on the road in a car. No more Mr and Mrs Taxi for parents.”

And that’s it. Stress passes him by. His work at the moment is all contracts, no security. “Lucky to have it at all,” he shrugs. And people have only one form of address to him. His mental health.

Just sitting inside in the canteen a few minutes ago and somebody collared him. The usual.

“You’re mad. What are you playing at. You won’t make it at either the way you’re going on.”

He doesn’t argue. “If it comes to a crisis and I feel the performances are bad I’ll make a new plan and drive on with that. For now sure I’m 23. I am going to give it a lash. I’m giving it a lash and can only try my best. Then nobody can say I didn’t give it a lash.”

Fair enough.

Several hours after the interview ends the phone rings. Eoin Cadogan’s number flashes up. You sigh. Here we go.

Odds are that he’s talked to respective Cork managers Conor Counihan and Denis Walsh and they’d prefer if he kept out of the papers. For now. So could you scrap the interview. For now.

Maybe later in the summer when the odds are impossibly high, Counihan or Walsh might encourage him to talk.

Yeah, right.

Rule number one in this scenario. Don’t make it easy for him. Lay the guilt on thick and heavy.

“Hello? It’s Eoin Cadogan Eh!” “Yes? What is it?

“Really sorry, I was wondering could you do me a favour please?”

“Tell me what it is and I will see whether I will do you a favour.

“One thing I forgot, I forgot to mention was my two neighbours. On summer evenings when I’d be growing up we’d play an All-Ireland in the back garden every evening. Mick Kingston and Pa Murphy. They were grown men. I know it would mean a lot to the lads. They meant a lot to me growing up. It was great crack, they’d stand with the father. I’d be one end of the garden. They’d be the other end.

“Driving the ball at each other. That was the highlight of every day. We’d a good-size garden. All we were short was a set of jerseys.”

A dual intercounty star who calls you back for such a gentle recollection and to thank a couple of neighbours ?

Gives the game away.

He is fictional but top-drawer fiction.