*Éire Óg’s Shane O’Donnell. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
SHANE O’Donnell has his sights on flying to the moon but his immediate focus is trying to win a first Clare SHC with Éire Óg on Sunday.
The Clare Echo’s online coverage of the Clare SHC is with thanks to The Temple Gate Hotel.
Success has not been overly plentiful for Shane when it comes to lining out with his club. “I’ve one medal with Éire Óg an U15B championship, that’s it, that is my entire hurling career with Éire Óg and an intermediate medal which I was injured for so it hasn’t exactly been an illustrious club career,” he admitted.
Wins at underage are becoming more frequent for the club in both codes, he acknowledged while recalling presenting medals in the Clubhouse to victorious Éire Óg underage sides last season. “It’s been brilliant to see this batch of new players come in, it makes me feel like Éire Óg is in a great place as a club. This time last year, I was giving out medals for Éire Óg’s football and hurling wins, the amount of Éiré Óg teams here in the clubhouse for winning A and B championships was phenomenal.
“I know in five or ten years or even two years I’ll be looking watching and they will be winning things which will be fantastic, I’m just looking to secure one while I’m still on the pitch”.
Head of Product Management with Eagle Genomics, Shane has a remote role working from Clare when the hurling is in full swing and then returning to Dublin when the season ends with Éire Óg. The double life is something he enjoys. “Brian (Lohan) and the Clare management are willing to give a bit more time at the start of the year which allows me to do six months of the year in Dublin and disconnect a small bit while keeping my body alive also because that is a full-time job”.
As October dawns and he is still working from Clare, it means the hurling is going well as Éire Óg prepare to try lift the Canon Hamilton for the first time since 1990. It will be O’Donnell’s second Clare SHC final, he hadn’t given much thought to it taking the club three years to get back to the decider, “if someone forced me to think about it I wouldn’t have been surprised it took a few years because the Clare championship is so competitive, we know that. In 2022 we played very well but we were also playing a fairly one-dimensional approach to the game, when that started to get stifled the following year then it was hard for us to reinvest ourselves a small bit, actually looking back now I’m not surprised and I think we’ve done quite well and it has required a lot of young lads to add new blood in the last year or two to bring us back to this level”.
This year’s run has seen him rotate possession and he does embrace the freshness this brings. “What I enjoy is Éire Óg winning, I really enjoy winning games and I will do whatever I have to do essentially, I like the cut and thrust of the half-forward line and midfield being under puckouts but I also enjoy when I’m in full-forward and I’m fed ball, it is a different type of game, it depends on how the game is panning out but I’ve really enjoyed the last couple of games”.
With “a phenomenal injection of players in the last two years,” he feels Éire Óg are a much stronger collective. “We blooded seven new players at senior level in the last two years, we’ve a couple more this year with Mulla (Rian Mulcahy), Marco (Cleary) but there is an unbelievable base of players there and you could see in the last fifteen minutes of the semi-final, we could bring on Ja (Jarlath Collins), James O’Dwyer, Tom Kavanagh and ever yone of them had an impact, they got the ball in their hand and did something with it either winning a free, getting a score, basically winning the game, it is incredible to have the players coming through and have so much competition for places”.
Over those years he has felt the competition for places has ramped up within the club. “It ebbs and flows like all teams, you hit patches of having a strong panel and that is when you tend to get your good years, then there might be years where you have your fifteen or seventeen lads that you have to make do with, in the last couple of years I’ve really felt like we’ve been swelling our ranks with good players, the lads that have come in also have an unbelievable attitude, a willingness to get involved and not be nervous, shy or concerned about the fact they are eighteen or have just joined the panel, we’ve a huge impact from them, a lot of them are regular starters and the ones that aren’t are coming on and making a difference, their application has to be commended and that is why we are where we are”.
Such a swell of younger players suddenly sees the teenage man of the match from the 2013 All-Ireland final replay now among the older members of the Éire Óg panel. “I’ve realised that for a years,” he quipped. “I’ve been one of the older lads for a long number of years. I’m safe in the knowledge that Danny is still there and is definitely holding out as the more senior statesman. Me, Corry and Reidy have been there quite a long time, it’s been fourteen years since playing senior level, I was intermediate for my first year, it’s been a long number of years at this level and it slowly dawns on you that you are one of the older players and you don’t think about it”.
It is unlikely that he will ever be the oldest Éire Óg player on the field and he is quick to point out he won’t be playing senior as long as Danny Russell. “I can categorically say that will not be happening for all reasons but simply the mechanics of my body will not allow that, I’ve found this year very hard with injuries like the shoulder, chasing back the shoulder with so much rehab and then getting back on the pitch and realising everything else is breaking down because I’ve pushed the shoulder so much and focused on that so much that I haven’t been able to focus the time on everything else, it has been difficult to feel right at all but that is just the nature of it when I was against the clock as much as I was with the shoulder, I put my eggs in the one basket and it cost me in the short to medium term. The idea of playing in five more years sends a shiver down my spine, I don’t know I’d have to be rolled around the pitch or fixed at the edge of the square but we will take it every match at a time at this stage”.
At the end of January, he underwent surgery on a shoulder injury and made his return when lifting the roof off Cusack Park following his introduction during Clare’s 4-18 2-21 loss to Tipperary in May. “My Clare campaign was ninety minutes, seventy of those were in a game which was a dead rubber so it puts it into perspective when you finish that year when you feel like you haven’t even started, the club starts and you think this is a serious opportunity, we have everything we need to be able to go to a final and we just need to put the shoulder to the wheel, it is great to be in a position where you can come back in, almost every club in Clare can find themselves in that position, every team could nearly argue that they have a chance of winning because it is so competitive, Clare is brilliant for that but we feel we’re in a good place, we have everything we need, we just have to put the shoulder to the wheel”.
On the injury itself, he recalled, “Most of the damage was done in the All-Ireland final the year before, I was training in December and I aggravated it past the point of being able to just manage it was basically what happened, that is where the damage was done that put me to the point of having to get the surgery”.
Acceptance is critical to overcoming injuries, the thirty one year old said. “It is difficult at the start when you realise you’re going to be spending time on the sideline, once you’re in the process of getting better it is actually fine, once I got over the initial disappointment, got through the surgery and the first few weeks of being totally immobilised and my quality of life was returned after I got out of the sling which was about four weeks, then it was just into the process of getting better and it was fine, I dealt with it and accepted I’d be missing games, initially I thought I could be back around the Munster final, then things were going well and I managed to pull that forward a couple of games but it was okay once I dealt with the initial enormous disappointment of it.
“It came out in the paper maybe six weeks after the surgery, I had the surgery at the end of January so I was over all the disappointment, I went through the process as I explained and I was getting better, I felt like I was moving in the right direction and then I got this outpouring of everyone texting and calling me to say they were so sorry and heartbroken, I was like ‘that was six weeks ago, I’m totally over that’, that was fine, going to huge Clare games and watching them is hugely challenging, it is really difficult, I knew it was going to be hard but I didn’t appreciate how hard it would be, the only time I watched games before like that was when I was concussed and to be perfectly honest my head was not in the same space as it was this year so it was really challenging to get back on the pitch and then to lose to Tipp was just, not going back into the nuts and bolts of it but that game was there for us, instead we watched Tipp go on and win, that is tough to take but that is the reality, you win some, you lose some, we had a year last year where we had a lot of luck, we just have to accept that it is part of it and injuries are part of sport, once you accept that then it makes the whole process easier”.
Watching Clare games will be difficult when the three time All Star does call time on his inter-county career, he admitted. “I’ll be a very poor supporter, I’ll be a very poor spectator, when I finish when exactly that is next year I’m not one hundred percent sure but I’ll be moving abroad with my girlfriend so that will make things easier, I’ll get that full disconnect because I wouldn’t be able to live even in Dublin or Ireland the year after I retire, I would find it so difficult because realistically I could play another year, my performances might be going down but I still could play, it is very hard to make that decision. I just have this idea in my head that I could be milling around some weekend, Clare could be in the championship and I could be in Clare, I would find it really hard. We plan to move abroad so that will make it easier, I will get that full physical disconnect from it, that is the plan”.
Australia has overtaken America as their preferred choice of country to move to. “I don’t think anybody is under any illusions as to why the veneer and appeal of America has washed off a small bit, America is not a place I want to go and contribute tax money to at the moment. From a career perspective, America would be a no brainer but you have to consider the whole package but we’d have a great time in Australia”.
Another trip he has yet to finalise is flying to the moon. “I don’t know how to describe it, I wouldn’t say it’s a bucket list thing because that makes it feel like a finger in the air, it is definitely a goal, people have a lot of stretched goals, this is about as stretched as it gets but it is something I’d like to do, whether I pay to do it or someone pays me to do it that is to be decided but it is definitely something I want to do”.
His immediate mission though is to try lift the Canon Hamilton with Éire Óg on Sunday. “That is firmly set in the scopes for the next couple of weeks but it is incredible to be in this position, walking in here on a lovely sunny evening is just brilliant, still around the club, still back in Clare and still hurling in September, it is a fantastic couple of weeks”.
During his time living and working in Clare, he is immersed in hurling much more than when he is based in the capital. “I try to get out in the evenings and puck around, to try be in the flow of being around hurling, that is always the way, every year you play it is such a commitment that early in the year you don’t find lads wanting to drive out to Clahane for recovery or to go for a puck on the one evening they are off from training but as you get to the business end of the season you realise that we have a serious chance here, your phone is buzzing with ideas of let’s do this, let’s do that and that is the best part of it, it is the same with Clare when we get to the end of the Clare campaign playing in All-Ireland semi-finals and finals that is when everyone is going to Clahane after sessions or going to lunch together, you’re fully dedicating the time to it because you know there is something special here and a serious opportunity to do something special, it is at that point of the year and you have to embrace it and enjoy it”.
Bonds get tighter the further teams go, he feels. “It is not just another year anymore it is like this could be the year, lads are willing to do whatever it takes. Early in the year, it is hard to commit the time, you’re trying to do what you can on the pitch and when you realise this could be the year it pivots your perspective a small bit and gives you the leverage to say ‘fine I’ll go pucking every evening’ and do the extra stuff, that is the best part of it”.
Timelines and targets have been achieved throughout Shane’s sporting life, there’s one big goal to be fulfilled and he hopes to reach it this weekend. “If I sat down at the start of my career before I ever put on a jersey for senior with anything, many of the medals and achievements I’ve had I have already managed to claim, the major one is probably this one, the Canon Hamilton, to be in another position starting that down I’m just delighted to be there, we have an enormous task ahead of us. I don’t care if it is a good game or not, it is going to be a battle and I’m looking forward to preparing for that”.
