In the tunnel beneath the Hogan Stand 11 summers ago now a fresh-faced Shane O’Donnell stood within a circle of reporters and tried to explain what it felt like to score a hat-trick in an All-Ireland final replay.
Sporting shaggy fair hair and a pearly white smile that was painted across his face, O’Donnell wouldn’t have looked out of place fronting a boy-band. In the space of one Saturday evening at Croke Park in September 2013, the 19-year-old became a sensation.
It could have been a moment so big, so overwhelming, that with the passing of time it grew to become a deadweight dangling from his hurl. But though his career has gone through many transformations and evolutions, that dreamlike display he produced on a night in Croke Park must have felt like the set of a Hollywood movie, never suffocated his intercounty career.
He was always going to be remembered for it, but he didn’t allow it to define him. There was a sabbatical to study in America and he became an advocate in demanding better protection and help for players around the area of head injuries, having suffered a serious concussion himself.
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But over the last few months he has delivered his best ever season. If 2013 launched him as a star then 2024 is the year that confirmed him as one of the most important players in the story of Clare hurling.
His post-match interview wasn’t carried out in the tunnel standing beside the team bus on this occasion, but rather in the Croke Park press conference room, where he sat alongside his brother-in-arms Tony Kelly. They wore the contented, satisfied expressions of men who had just completed an arduous trek. Kids back then, men now, heroes always.
The Clare management, reluctantly, brought O’Donnell off the pitch after 80 minutes – and only when it was clear the Éire Óg man could give no more. He’d suffered a shoulder injury in an innocuous contest for possession midway through the second half and in extra time it was the legs causing him problems as he limped about, clearly uncomfortable. He had emptied himself for the cause.
But when Johnny Murphy brought an end to a breathless contest, the magnitude of what had been achieved gave all the battered and bruised Clare bodies on the bench an injection of adrenaline. The pain disappeared. They raced towards the field.
“It was incredible, hard to put into words,” said O’Donnell of the final whistle. “It’s very hard to describe – just an outpouring of emotion that’s 10 years in the making. You think it will come around when you win in your first year, and that obviously did not transpire. To get a day like today just makes 10 years of hardship worthwhile.”
Speaking to RTÉ he had gone even further in articulating what this All-Ireland triumph meant.
“It’s the greatest day of my life, anyway,” he beamed. “Speaking for the lads, I’d say I can safely say it’s the greatest day of their lives as well. Sometimes you just think over the years you might never get back, but to see this, it’s just incredible.”
And while Kelly will rightly receive so many of the plaudits it was O’Donnell who hopped into the wheelhouse and steadied the Good Ship Clare during that first-half period when leaks were blistering all across their hull.
They trailed 1-8 to 0-4 in the 17th minute when O’Donnell all but decided the time had come for the fuckaboutery to stop. He outfought Ciarán Joyce for possession out near the Hogan Stand sideline on the Cork 20-metre line. He cut inside the Cork wing back but in a bid to prevent O’Donnell barrelling goalward, Joyce jabbed out his right hand to block the forward momentum. O’Donnell smashed through it like a truck hitting a toll-bridge barrier. He got a pass off to Peter Duggan.
But the ball was spilt by Duggan and O’Donnell immediately swooped to gather possession again. This time he broke through the tackle of Eoin Downey, sidestepped Robert Downey and fed the ball to Aidan McCarthy, who rifled home. McCarthy raised the green flag, but it was O’Donnell’s goal.
And he wasn’t finished. O’Donnell scored the next two points of the game. Just like that Clare had gone from seven points adrift to two points behind. And all the wind was at the Banner’s backs now. In that period O’Donnell wrestled the momentum away from Cork, he punched his hand into the abyss and yanked Clare back out of it.
“Thank God I didn’t make that decision,” he replied when asked about almost giving up hurling. “I was very close to that. A lot of years you think you’re close (to winning) and then it just stops. This year we weren’t playing amazing at certain stages of the year, but we just managed to turn the screw and win an epic battle.”
He’s a two-time All-Ireland winner now. There was never any danger of him becoming a one-hit wonder, but this Celtic Cross is testament to the journey he has been on since 2013. This was harder won, and because of that it seems to have meant more.
There are likely to be a few more accolades coming to him in the weeks ahead, certainly an All Star, probably a Hurler of the Year gong too.
Before he leaves the press conference room, he is asked about Tony Kelly.
“He’s just an exceptional player and it’s a privilege to play with him,” remarked O’Donnell.
Kelly doesn’t need to say anything, but you know he’s thinking the same of the man sitting in the chair next to him. Brothers-in-arms, two-time All-Ireland winners now.
Kids back then, men now, heroes always.
