Cut out to be a middle man after all

Shane Horgan interview: Funny, isn't it? For four years he'd been a top-class Leinster centre who supposedly couldn't cut it in midfield at Test level, but adapted seamlessly and prolifically to the wing. This season, Leinster employ Shane Horgan on the wing and he cuts the Boks' midfield defence to shreds. With two strings to his Test bow, Horgan is surely enhancing his Lions credentials.

Earlier this week, Eddie O'Sullivan agreed that Horgan's form thus far has been one of the big bonuses of the autumn. "He's rarely played at centre. He has played a couple of times, but (had) not really done himself justice in the position, and one of the things that worried me about moving him to the centre was losing him on the wing."

Citing Horgan's determination, O'Sullivan ventured that the player "saw the South African game as an opportunity to silence some critics of his ability to play in the centre and maybe show me as well that he had more to offer in the centre. And I'm delighted by that."

Indeed, O'Sullivan effectively admitted that he shared those misgivings when conceding: "These are one of the times you like to be wrong about something when a guy comes out and produces more than you anticipated and he certainly did that against South Africa and I know he's determined to do so again this Saturday. We're better off for that and like I said, there's times you like being wrong about things."

According to Horgan himself, proving critics, coaches or anyone else wrong wasn't what motivated him. At the very least, you'd have thought the less than distinguished memories of his previous three caps at centre would have weighed on his mind. There was the forgettable 78-9 win over Japan in the autumn of 2000, the awful 32-10 defeat to Scotland at Murrayfield in September 2001 (rearranged from the previous season because of the foot-and-mouth epidemic) and the unexceptional 32-17 Six Nations home win over Italy in March 2002.

"I had to leave those performances behind. I think that I can play centre at a relatively high level. I enjoy playing there but my focus was purely on that South African game and trying to win. The way they defend and attack, what they do. I'm just one of the 22 who spends time in the team meeting-rooms analysing. Everybody does it now. The minutiae that they look into with players is crazy, and the minutiae that Eddie goes into, in looking into every aspect of the game, and the benefits were accrued prior to the match. I don't know if you can prove anyone right or wrong on the basis of one game. It's a team game. I can't worry about that."

Such a specified mindset, not looking back while focusing on the team's performance and his role in it, has served him well. Ireland's pre-match analysis centred on the Boks' speed on to the gain line in defence, and sought to attack their inside shoulders. As it happened, more space developed in the channels between their openside, outhalf and inside centre than they expected.

He also stresses the amount of good go-forward ball which was generated by those inside him, but when pressed admits he was happy with his performance.

"I really enjoyed that game. I don't think I've ever played in an Irish team that was so together prior to, or during, a game. If there was a good hit made, if there were people foraging for the ball, if the ball was taken up well into contact, everyone went to congratulate.

"A lot of the winning of the game was in that. The encouragement and mental attitude was a little boost. You use that as an energiser and I thought that was evident on the field. The South Africans are so used to bullying teams and I suppose they develop a psychological edge on teams - and to some degree they certainly had a hex over us in South Africa and any time we played them. But I thought we really stood up to them quite well.

"We stood up for each other, we were really a close unit, and I think that was possibly the most important thing to come out of that game."

Yet, after the 10-week pre-season, as tough as anything he's ever done, Horgan struggled in his delayed comeback games for Leinster against the Dragons and Edinburgh, and was demoted to the bench against the Ospreys.

"I was a little bit concerned to be honest with you as it was panning out."

The emergence, or re-emergence, of Gary Brown, James Norton, Kieran Lewis and Co along with the frontliners doesn't allow for much slackness.

"You've got to have your head on," says Horgan. "The days of having a couple of games just don't exist. You've got to perform straight away."

He admits he's not a traditional winger in the mould of a Denis Hickie, and sought to accentuate what he brings to the party; plenty of work-rate, getting his hands on the ball as much as possible. He adorned both the Treviso and Bath wins in the Heineken European Cup with tries and when the internationals rolled around, the injury to Gordon D'Arcy prompted O'Sullivan to reconvert the Leinster winger back to his long-accustomed role ahead of Kevin Maggs. The coach was utterly vindicated.

Horgan's emphasis on performing for the collective good highlights how much a team sport suits him. A golf hat, say, or a tennis cap, somehow wouldn't fit so easily.

"I've always enjoyed the camaraderie. The guys will probably take the piss out of me," he says, smiling. "I like the fact that you're with your friends, and you're with guys you can trust. Myself, Ronan, John Hayes, Strings and Sy (Simon Easterby) won our first caps on the same day. Along with guys like Drico and Girvan, we've been together a long time; it's enjoyable to play with these fellows. It doesn't allow you to play your best rugby when you're not comfortable in your surroundings."

It was a tribute to both the family-like set-up at Leinster, along with his own resilience, that Horgan responded to being dropped from the Irish team after the aforementioned Scottish encounter and being dropped (not to mention one pundit rashly predicting that he would never play for Ireland again) with a string of high-quality performances.

A Meath man, who will forever have a sense of gratitude and debt to Jim Glennon for bringing him into the Leinster fold, Horgan simply loves playing for the Blues, which probably made being dropped by Leinster for the first time in his career - after the 51-20 defeat to Llanelli - the lowest point in his career.

"The set-up with Matty (Williams) was one I loved coming home to. There was a change to professionalism and everyone involved in that time loved it. It was a different way of buying into things and a different way of playing. It was a beautiful, fun way of playing rugby.

"Last year we spent more time with Ireland, and we hadn't developed the same relationship with Gary (Ella) - speaking for myself anyway - that some of the guys had who were there all the time had, and certainly I never had the relationship with Gary that I had with Matt and Alan Gaffney. In some ways I felt very sorry for Gary. I never had any time to develop a relationship with him. I actually didn't know the guy that well."

In general, Horgan feels incredibly lucky to have been born into this era, amongst this vintage crop of players.

"You mightn't get guys like these again for 20 years, you never know. We've got into a habit of winning games, for Leinster and for Ireland. You get very greedy. You expect to win all your games. Winning just a couple of games isn't an option. I tell you, if it happened, a whole lot of us wouldn't be playing again."

At 26, with 60-plus caps for his province and 30-plus for his country, Horgan should be entering his prime. Team goals go hand in hand with individual ones. "My personal goals are exactly that, they're personal, but you can be sure that they involve playing for Leinster and Ireland."

That's typical of him. Well-read, politically-minded and quite liberal with it, ("a social democrat," he laughs), he's publicity shy andprefers to limit his discussions into a tape recorder to rugby matters.

He lives away from the rugby fraternity, having bought a house in The Liberties. "I love it around there. There's a really good community spirit, really nice people and you're living right in the centre which is nice. It's a very nice place to come home to."

Even though he regards it as more regimented and restrictive than when he first broke into the scene, he enjoys the lifestyle of being a professional rugby player. And it does have its moments.

Playing Argentina, he says, "you know what you're up against. It's like South Africa, get your body ready for a beating. They really disrupt your gameplan; it's very, very hard to impose your gameplan on the Argentinians.

"And that's not being disrespectful, because when get the ball they're quite capable of scoring tries going wide and even when they're popping close passes to each other they have a high skill level. It's just a different way of playing the game or what we're used to, but no less intriguing and when you've got two contrasting styles it makes it an interesting game."

Horgan reckons there's few better places to play than an autumn international, with a late kick-off under lights, at Lansdowne Road.

"The noise is just spectacular and the atmosphere is really a true rugby tradition. I love it. There was a period of the game against South Africa 10 or 15 minutes into the second half when we repelled waves of their attacks.

"Shane Byrne, John Hayes and some other guys made big hits, the ball was turned over and Strings kicked into touch down the line. I remember the noise was deafening, and you're thinking, 'that's not bad'.

"It's not bad doing this. It's sore, the bodies are hurting but when you feel that, it makes a difference. The excitement generated in those couple of seconds is really something. We're very, very lucky to experience those things. Those highs are really high."

Yeah, it has its moments.