Peter Duggan’s miraculous, one-handed solo point for Clare against Galway in their epic drawn All-Ireland semi-final was voted The Sunday Game’s hurling Moment of the Year for 2018.
Duggan had a sensational year, scoring from all angles and distances, and this score was certainly the best of them.
But his own personal moment of year was when the Banner beat Tipperary in the Munster championship at Semple Stadium.
When asked to pin-point his best memory of 2018, Duggan answered without hesitation: "Tipp.
"Beating Tipp at home. That was 100 per cent absolutely brilliant. Tipp would be a huge rival of Clare - probably the biggest rivalry. To beat them at home and knock them out of the Championship, I don't think I'll forget that for a long time."
Duggan notched two late points to secure a 1-23 to 1-21 win against the Premier County in Thurles, including one outrageous score from under the stand on the right touchline, but it was the result that gave him the biggest buzz.
Looking back on his incredible point against the Tribesmen, the Clooney Quin man describes it as lucky.
But as the old expression goes, the harder you work the more luck you get and Duggan’s effort was no fluke.
He revealed that he starts training an hour early and hits 100 frees before the rest of his team-mates show up.
The PwC GAA/GPA Player of the Month for July winner, who collected his award today, often has a little fun during practice, trying to put over balls from the end line one-handed.
The hard work paid off.
Magic year of hurling but which moment was most magical? Winner to be discussed from 9.30pm on @RTE2. Place your vote below pic.twitter.com/iucitd2AOi
— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) August 19, 2018
Speaking to RTÉ Sport about that score, when he fought his way through a ruck of Galway defenders and flicked the ball over the bar one handed, he says it was pure instinct.
"I didn't know if I gave away a free or someone gave away a free, but I thought there was some sort of a free supposed to be going - if it was me for steps or for pulling, I don't know what it was," he says with an infectious smile.
"That was kind of going through my head. I just remember seeing a small little bit of a breakthrough and I said, 'Ah sure look, I'll give it a go and see if it goes over'. I think in my head I thought for some reason I had an advantage so it was a kind of a win-win.
"Shoot, sure look. Shoot for the craic and see what happens like, we might have a free anyway."
After Limerick’s All-Ireland final win over Galway at the weekend, Sunday Game viewers and expert analysts voted and pronounced Duggan’s score the moment of the year.
He said: "Ah look, it's cool. It's nice to have a little bit of a thing to look back on. But at the same time, you'd sacrifice 100 of them for getting into the All-Ireland final.
"It's a small little novelty to have to look back on that you got a cool score but at the same time, it's still in the back of your head, it kind of hurts. Imagine if we got another one of them we would have been in the All-Ireland final."
Duggan, who turns 25 in September, was part of the Clare panel when they won the All-Ireland title in 2013, having been called in to the panel as a schoolboy the previous season. He says he enjoyed seeing Limerick beat the defending champion Tribesmen to claim the Liam MacCarthy Cup for the first time since 1973.
The Limerick IT student played with plenty of the All-Ireland winners and is close to wing-back Diarmuid Byrnes, but he explains that it’s also motivating him to drive on with the Banner again in 2019.
Duggan was an overnight sensation this year, but he was a long-time in the making and admits that he came close to pulling out of the Clare panel for good at the end of last season.
"I was very close. I'd say if Clooney didn't go well last year I wouldn't have gone back. It's a huge commitment," he said.
"You're a hurler before anything else. If you're a teacher, the first thought people look at you - you're a hurler. No one really cares what you're at outside of hurling. All they ever ask you is hurling, hurling, hurling.
"When you're on the fringes then, it's very tough because you're still putting in the same hours but you're not really getting any game time. It's very hard to stay going at it.
"I think one of the hardest things to stay doing is when you can't make the breakthrough but you're still putting in all the hard work."
Peter says he used his older brother Martin, now based in London, as a sounding board. His advice was to stick with it and this along with the confidence of strong showings in the drawn and replayed county finals, which his club lost to Sixmilebridge, convinced him.
He takes up the story: "I said 'Do you know what? Go back for one more year and see what happens.' I remember ringing the brother and he was just like, 'Peter, go full hog for a year. If it doesn't work out, if you don't make it again this year, we'll leave it at that and you can't say you didn't try. But just go full hog and see what happens.’
"Lucky enough, they kept faith in me and stayed playing me throughout the year. Lucky enough I stayed on the team anyway."
