Robert Downey of Cork with the Allianz Hurling League Division 1A trophy ahead of the Allianz Hurling League Division 1A Final between Cork and Tipperary at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh in Cork this weekend. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile.
By John Harrington
When you lose an epic All-Ireland Final it’s no consolation that it was an epic.
If anything, the fine margins that Cork came out on the wrong side of against Clare last year’s All-Ireland Hurling Final surely made the sting of defeat all the sharper because ‘what if’ and ‘if only’ thoughts must never be far from the front of the mind.
How do you overcome that sort of disappointment as a player? For Rob Downey the only answer was to seek succour in the place he’s most comfortable, his club Glen Rovers.
“It's hard really, you're gutted and you're devastated,” says Downey of the experience of losing last year’s Final.
“You just go back with your club. For me anyway, I just went back with my club as fast as I could. I didn't really want any hanging around or anything like that.
“I think playing with the Glen is probably the most enjoyable time I have anyway playing hurling. I'm not speaking for Eoin (Downey) and Patrick (Horgan) but I think they would probably say the same.
“For me it was just about getting back up on the horse as fast as you could. You're not going to forget about it but it definitely does take...you know, your mind needs to focus on something else.”
Glen Rovers has always been a second home for the Downey brothers. It helps that it’s only a short hop from their actual home.
“We would have lived a 10 minute walk but only in the last year then we moved even closer so I'm only a 30 second walk to the Glen club now,” says Downey.
“The Glen would have been where we hung around every day after school, every day all day during the summer.
“The fellas from the Glen are the fellas who are my best friends now obviously from playing with them the whole way up.
“When we were younger that's what we did in the summer time, we were down the Glen going to every match that was on and hanging around down the Glen field all day, every day, messing around and playing hurling, it was a dream really.”
Shane O'Donnell of Clare in action against Robert Downey of Cork during the GAA Hurling All-Ireland Senior Championship Final between Clare and Cork at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile.
Positive role-models were never far away in Glen Rovers, and Downey credits their good example with helping him become the hurler and person he is today.
“Yeah, for me I think definitely Graham Callanan and Paddy Cunningham,” he says. “What them two fellas have given to the Glen, their service in the last however long they played was just incredible.
“They were great leaders, I was lucky enough to play with the two of them – Graham for only a year and Paddy for maybe two or three years. I would have been on the training with them in the 2016 county final.
“Look, just the performances they gave for the Glen and the time and effort and the standards they drove, it was just always something I looked up to and wanted to be like.”
His uncle Len Downey played football alongside with Roy Keane with Rockmount and won a few underage caps with Ireland, but for Rob hurling has always been his sole sporting obsession.
“Ah I suppose it would be,” he says. “My Mam's two brothers would have played with the Glen. One of her brothers would have played senior with the Glen. My Dad would be more soccer. His brother (Len) played soccer and stuff.
“Sport is definitely always spoken around the table but, ah, we try to keep it outside really. There's lots of other things going on in other people's lives. My Mam wouldn't be slow about telling us to shut up if we were constantly talking about hurling.
“Ah no, we're a hurling mad family, we've a sporting mad family. I've another brother as well, Tom, he's between myself and Eoin. He plays as well for the Glen. I suppose me and Eoin are probably always talking about hurling and training and this and that and other small things.”
Robert Downey of Cork in action against Galway players, from left, Rory Burke, Tiernan Killeen, Jason Flynn and Evan Niland during the Allianz Hurling League Division 1A match between Cork and Galway at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh in Cork. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile.
As men who love to chat about hurling themselves, they’re happy that the whole county is buzzing about the prospect of playing Tipperary in Sunday’s Allianz Hurling League Final in front of a packed Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
"Yeah, it's great,” says Downey. “I think the tickets went very fast. But it's brilliant. It's great to have that much interest in a game and it creates a great buzz too for the players of both teams to be coming down to a great stadium and a full stadium too at that.
“Also for the guys in the 1B final, Offaly and Waterford, it's brilliant to be playing in front of a full stadium. That's what you go training for, to play the games on those big days. It's brilliant."
Cork haven’t won a League title since 1998 which means they haven’t been champions in Downey’s life-time.
What would it mean to him to be part of a team that ended that famine?
“As a player you want to win everything,” he says. “Every time you go out you want to win the game you're playing in, every time you're training if you're playing a game you want to win that game too.
“So, yeah definitely, it's something that we'd love. Like I say, you want to win everything. But I suppose Cork not winning a league in my lifetime has never really entered my head to be honest.
“It's not something that we really think of. All our focus is just on the training leading into the Tipp game and we'll see where we go after that then.
“Lifting a cup in front of your own people would be lovely but, for us, and I know it's probably cliche, we really just try to take it day by day. You don't even allow those thoughts to enter your head because the training sessions and things leading into it are the really important things.
“I think, as well, it's important that we keep an eye on April 20 as well because that's a more important game, not that it's more important than the league final, but Championship is really where it matters.”
