The Glen Rovers man, having started Cork’s opening two games of the 2017 league, and being top scorer in both, was omitted from the starting team for the round three trip to Nowlan Park.

It was the first time in Kingston’s tenure that Horgan had not made the cut. Cork lost by seven to Kilkenny, their second successive defeat of the league, with Horgan again among the subs for the following week’s game in Walsh Park.

Introduced off the bench on both occasions, he was still out of favour when the team was announced on the Friday night before they welcomed Tipperary to Páirc Uí Rinn for what was a must-win fixture.

An injury to Shane Kingston, though, saw him returned to the attack and boy did Horgan make a statement to management that afternoon. Fifteen points, in total, including the 74th-minute winner, meant Kingston and his backroom team wouldn’t be leaving him on the bench anytime soon.

Horgan finished the year as Cork’s all-time leading scorer and with a second All-Star in the cabinet. He’s carried that form into 2018, notching 2-41 in the league and has already racked up 1-42 (0-28 from placed balls) this summer.

“Looking back on it, it seems like years ago,” says Horgan of those two league games where he endured, for the most part, a spectating role.

“I’d laugh about it now with Kieran. I always tell him, remember the time you dropped me! I get no reply. He didn’t [pull me aside]. The team was announced and I just wasn’t on it.”

Was it hard to swallow or, more pertinent, was it what you needed, a jolt to the system?

“Not really. I always have confidence in myself whether someone else has it in me [or not]. You’d tell yourself [it is only league], but if you were going well enough at the time, you’d be playing. I was doing something wrong. I just had to go out and train a bit harder. I always have the mind of trying to be better. I enjoy trying to be the best I can be hurling wise.”

This chimes perfectly with Christopher Joyce’s description of his teammate: “He’s turned 30 but he is as hungry as the 21-year olds. He is first at training every night. He lives for it. I’ve never seen a man practice so much. I’d say the man is pucking through the night.”

More ingrained in Horgan’s mind from the 2017 season is not his temporary removal from the starting XV, rather Cork’s All-Ireland semi-final no-show. Finishing 11 points adrift of Waterford meant their unexpected run to a Munster crown, Horgan insisted, counted for little.

“It is just disappointing that we were doing so well up to that game. We didn’t play well in the semi-final. We were still competitive for so long. If we had just got an extra 2 or 3% out of ourselves, which was well doable, because we didn’t play well, we think we could have got over the line. Fellas have knuckled down this year and just want to get the best out of themselves for the next day.”

Tomorrow will be the 30-year old’s seventh All-Ireland semi-final. All but one have ended in disappointment.

“In 2014, we couldn’t get going that day [against Tipperary]. But yet, we were only losing by a point at half-time. We didn’t puck a ball in that game. Last year, we could have done better. That was a fierce drop in performance. We’re miles ahead of that. We just never showed it that day.

“It is grand if you backup the Munster final with something in the semi-final. Then, maybe, you could say you had a good year. If you are beaten the next day, the Munster final counts for very little.”

That litany of semi-final defeats means it is 13 years to the county’s last Liam MacCarthy win, the second longest period the county has gone without championship success.

“The players there now don’t really care about that,” continues Horgan. “To win [a Celtic Cross] would be unbelievable.

If we put all our focus into the Limerick game and get the best result we can, get to the final and then hopefully, start thinking about All-Irelands and Cork are winning this and Cork are winning that. As of now, we haven’t won anything.”