Peter Duggan has quickly become a household hurling name, after a summer that saw him notch 3-76 in one of the best championships we’ve ever seen. He spoke to OTB AM this week, after picking up his PWC ‘Hurler of the month’ award for July. We chatted about the the instinct behind one of the scores of the year, his glowing love for club hurling and mowing the pitch at Cusack Park.
He’s enjoying his hurling again
Peter Duggan’s great season came from a renewed confidence that came from the backing of the management in his abilities as a top inter-county hurler.
“This year I found hurling so much more enjoyable. I had a starting place,” explains Duggan.
“(I had) a bit more confidence in my own hurling. I kinda knew what I can and can’t do, and I kinda just enjoyed myself really”
“Like if you look at the Cork game this year, the first game, I was absolutely horrific. I don’t think I touched the ball. But I was lucky enough they stayed starting me and lucky enough I got a few scores after that.”
THAT point
It was put to Duggan that the nation is still relatively confused by his insane point against Galway in their drawn All-Ireland semi-final.
“I’m puzzled myself!” he says.
Was it based on instinct, or did he practice something similar?
“I’d be messing about in the field... the main part I enjoy about hurling is going to the field and pucking about with the lads and it’d be in the back of the head a small little bit. At the same time, for it to actually work out a little bit is lucky.”
Mowing the pitch, then playing on the pitch
This summer, Duggan was working with the Clare County Board, with his job involving the maintenance of pitches. In one of the most GAA stories we’ve ever heard, Duggan tells us about cutting the grass at Cusack Park ahead of the first Championship game there in 21 years, a couple of days before he himself was togged out on the pitch.
“It’s a bit of a thrill, when you cut the field and you’re out playing on it a few days later, like, it’s a bit of craic.
“You’re doing your kinda visualisation when you’d be cutting the field, like, you’d be ‘jeez, what’d I do here?’... sure you’d be only cutting grass, you don’t need to concentrate too much like!”
The club is king
There are no medals for identifying Peter Duggan’s love for his club, Clooney-Quin.
“Clooney is everything to me, I think club is the main thing” he tells us.
“If anyone in the club ever asked me to do anything, I wouldn’t think twice, I’d just go do it like... I used to look up to ‘Bruiser’, Fergal Lynch, like. I used to look up to him. And I remember Martin, my older brother then would’ve been very good friends with Fergal and Fergal would be calling away to the house like and I’d be looking up, idolising him, like.
“Some day, he just landed over with the jersey and was like ‘do you want me to sign that now?’... I remember how much that meant to me and I said ‘know what, if anyone ever asked me for anything, I’d never think twice’”
Get ready for a ‘scandalous’ Championship 2019
It’s been a pretty good year for hurling. Get ready for next year, though, because Peter Duggan thinks it might be even better:
“There’s 8 teams out there that can all contest for an All-Ireland and all with equal enough ability, like. The thought of Munster now next year is terrifying me like!
“Whatever good 2018 was, 2019 could be scandalous altogether!”
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