Shane O'Donnell on 2013 v 2024 as Clare star savours Hurler of the Year award
O'Donnell is the first Clare man to win the Hurler of the Year award since his teammate Tony Kelly back in 2013.
On the face of things, you’d think that it’s difficult to separate them, but for Shane O’Donnell it’s actually pretty straightforward.
The frees-coring teenage sensation that was plucked from nowhere to decide an All-Ireland final replay, hitting 3-3 and winning man of the match? Or the ever-present and more mature ball-winning, play-making forward that made Clare tick as they finally learned how to win in Croke Park again, to such an extent that his crowning as Hurler of the Year last night was a mere formality?
It’s certainly not that Shane O’Donnell is turning his back on the 2013 experience; it’s just that the 2024 one has been more fulfilling. He’s just slipped into his 30s now and has a more rounded perspective of life and hurling’s place in it.
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“I said it after the game that this one was better, and I still maintain that this one is better,” he says. “We appreciate it more, all of those things. I'm more mature now to be able to control my time a small bit, to not be dragged into doing things because I feel obliged. I do things because I want to do them or I like the cause or whatever is going on.
“It feels like I'm far more in control of my time which just means I've had more time to sit back. Just being in the afterglow of winning an All-Ireland. I didn't experience that in 2013. When I look back at it, everything was manic, go, go, go, and getting pulled and dragged.
“This year, and work helps, I just can't do that, I'm working. That is a very reasonable reason not to do something. Just having that structure has allowed me to sit back, enjoy it, and just bask in what Clare have managed to achieve this year.
“When you win Liam MacCarthy, you've to absolutely savour it, we learned that from 2013. Maybe we didn't actually enjoy that as much, maybe we thought it would come more frequently, whatever it might be. This year, and I've talked to a lot of the lads, we've sat back some days, soaked it in a small bit.
“This [winning Hurler of the Year] is similar. It isn't in the same calibre, but it is still a fantastic day, it is something I'm proud of, and it is something I'll savour.”
There’s a dividing line in O’Donnell’s career - before and after the terrible concussion that he suffered in 2021. There was a real danger that he wouldn’t play the game again but he managed to build a routine, facilitated by the management, that sees him slip back into action in late spring.
It’s worked spectacularly well with O’Donnell playing his best hurling since he reappeared for Clare in the 2022 Championship, winning a third successive All Star last night to boot. Not that any of that was in his eyeline as he negotiated a lengthy recovery process three years ago.
“At the time it wasn't a moment of being 'I can still win Player of the Year, I have to go back, I can still win an All-Ireland', it was purely I needed to go back for my own physical wellbeing and health.
“I needed to go back, to know I wasn't afraid of hurling or being on the pitch for the rest of my life. That was the context for the decision to go back. It wasn't any grander than that, it was a really narrow scope. I need to play hurling again or I will never be what I was before or I will always be marred by this event.
“The scope was quite narrow for making that decision to go back. When I went back and Brian [Lohan] was in charge, and he gave me the time, which was a huge part of it. If he had forced me to make a decision early in the year, I would've just said no, I was too afraid at the time. He gave me that room to make that decision myself.
“The moment I went back, after the first week, I knew I made the right decision. I got back in training with the guys, I was back on the pitch, took a couple of hits, and I am what I was before again. It had been a long nine months not feeling like that. So, that was the impetus for making that decision.”
“Even after a couple of years the Clare group just started to grow. I think there was an awareness that we were building. There was no retirements really, there was no player taking a step back. We all had our foot on the gas for the last three years, it has been a joy to have been a part of.”
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