Clare’s Shane O’Donnell finds trimmed-down season is just the right fit

Shane O’Donnell appears to be proving as elusive in interview as he has been on the field.

Asked was he still thinking of retiring and travelling abroad, as he mentioned last November, Clare’s All Star forward replies: “It’s kind of the same situation. I take it year by year. I won’t rule out playing next year but I wouldn’t absolutely say, ‘Yeah, I would’ as well.”

Could winning the All-Ireland decisively tilt his deliberations?

“You could make arguments for both but I don’t think either would really actually make – from my current vantage point, I don’t think winning the All-Ireland or not winning the All-Ireland; both would have reasons for me to go back essentially so yeah, I don’t think I could make a decision based on that, basically.”

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By now, it has become clear that he is not really being elusive. He simply isn’t sure what his attitude will be at the end of the championship.

One thing he is pretty certain about is that were he not conditioning his seasons, retirement might well be on the horizon at this point if it hadn’t already happened.

“It definitely does. If I was facing down 10- or 11-month seasons, I don’t know if I would still be playing. And if I was, I would be retiring this year.”

O’Donnell turns 30 this year and re-entered the county’s orbit in time to play a role in the league final victory over Kilkenny. Since then, his season has taken off with excellent performances in the disappointing defeat by Limerick on the championship’s first weekend in Ennis and the redemptive win down in Cork last weekend.

He provided very similar assists for Aidan McCarthy’s goal against Limerick and Mark Rodgers’s last weekend, adding one of his own the second day.

Originally, it was a concussion injury three years ago that got him into the pattern of skipping the season until March. He had previously recounted how Clare manager Brian Lohan had approached him in January 2022 about returning to training but he deferred coming back for a couple of months until medical advice was clearcut – it was his decision but there was nothing to stop him resuming his hurling career.

It has been some career to date. His eruption into the 2013 All-Ireland final replay against Cork as a teenager produced a hat-trick of goals within 19 minutes but the years since did not maintain that trajectory – until the past two seasons when Clare established themselves as Limerick’s closest rivals by finishing top of the Munster table and narrowly losing both finals.

O’Donnell has been very influential both years, winning his first two All Stars in 2022 and ‘23.

He attributes his form to taking a long break and effectively skipping the league.

“I spend the off season staying in touch, doing gym and that kind of work and when it gets close to this March deadline, I come back into training. I have maybe three or four weeks of running sessions to prepare for that and then in early March, I fit back into the panel training.

“You’d be surprised how quickly it comes around. From the hurling stuff, it’s in the bank. Anyone who has played intercounty for eight or 10 years could take a break and take it back up in a week or two.

“I find it works extremely well for me. Whether it’s physical energy coming back in, I don’t think that’s the case. It’s more a psychological edge – if that’s the right word; I can bring a lot of energy back in because I haven’t been training for a number of months and I think that does lend itself to me being able to perform come championship.”

Asked about the “leap of faith” that this abbreviated preparation will work for him every year, he says that the same leap of faith is required if you have done six months’ heavy training.

He has gone as far as to recommend the approach to fellow veterans in the Clare panel.

As someone with strong views on the purpose of the league, O’Donnell nonetheless accepts it was important for Clare to win April’s final.

“I think winning the final was important. I wouldn’t put so much weight on having a good league in general but when it came to the final, winning that match was important.”

He also acknowledges that beating Kilkenny – who have beaten them in the last two All-Ireland semi-finals – was “an important milestone”.

A former Fulbright scholar in Harvard, he loved Boston after the excesses of his post-2013 fame, for the very antithesis of the city’s famous fictional bar – Cheers – where nobody knew his name.

Career is important – he now works with Sano Genetics, who build software for the running of clinical trials – and the opportunity to travel is always there and something that interests him.

For the moment, what may – or may not – be his last season is in full flight but he is taking time out next weekend [Clare are not playing] to participate in the Darkness into Light walk.

“I think everybody is aware of somebody that’s been negatively affected by it [mental health]. My girlfriend is a clinical psychologist so I’m kind of more aware but I’m also aware of where my boundaries of understanding and not understanding are.”

– Shane O’Donnell was speaking at the launch of Darkness Into Light 2024. O’Donnell has teamed up with Electric Ireland and Pieta for Darkness Into Light which takes place on Saturday, May 11th. People can sign up to take part in this year’s event at darknessintolight.ie.

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