At least the next day we’ll have to win. Wanting to win is no good, you need to be in the having to win bracket.
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It will come down to who Colm Lyons decides to send off for nothing today I feel.
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Hegarty might as well leave the Hurley at home
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A few months back, a couple of Clare hurlers were in the gym testing their bench-press strength when Shane O’Donnell ambled in. The two players were at their maximum capacity and were struggling to complete reps of eight, but they knew where this was going. One winked at the other. As soon as O’Donnell turned his back, they loaded another pile of weights on to the bar. O’Donnell hadn’t even warmed up when he lay down on the bench. Bang. Bang. Bang. He completed 12 reps without even blinking.
For a while now, everything has seemed a little effortless for O’Donnell. It never is, but O’Donnell has still made it appear that way. He didn’t return to collective training with Clare until St Patrick’s Day. His only game-time in the league was the second half of the league final. Yet three weeks later, O’Donnell was voted player of the month for April.
That 35 minutes against Kilkenny was the only game-time O’Donnell, 29, has seen in the last three leagues, but he has still managed to win successive All Stars and is currently the leading contender for hurler of the year. There have been times in this championship when O’Donnell has looked unmarkable. Unbreakable. Untouchable.
His numbers have been staggering. O’Donnell has only scored 1-6, but he has either directly assisted or been fouled for a staggering 2-17. Technically, that could be 3-17 as O’Donnell started and engineered the move which led to Diarmuid Ryan’s goal against Tipperary.
Kilkenny’s Martin Keoghan is the only player ahead of O’Donnell in this championship with assists, with 2-18, but Leinster is a different level to Munster and every team in Leinster has one more game. And still, O’Donnell has managed to have 26 shot assists, one more than Keoghan.
Could O’Donnell be scoring more? His conversion rate from play is 58 per cent. He could have had another 2-2 against Tipp; he blasted wide from close range and hit the bottom of the post. But he was still either directly or indirectly involved in 1-12 of Clare’s 1-24 points that afternoon. Staggering.
Assists are technically classed as the last pass for a score, or being fouled for a converted free, but there are so many layers to O’Donnell’s game now that any one category can never do full justice to his overall contribution, and how important he has become to Clare. That influence has been all the more powerful and important again in Tony Kelly’s absence.
O’Donnell was voted player of the month for April
When Tipp had reduced the margin to three points with eight minutes remaining, O’Donnell won a long puckout before breaking away from three defenders and slotting the point. “I am just shaking my head here in amazement,” Niall Moran said in his TV co-commentary. “He is just incredible.” Straight afterwards, O’Donnell was fouled for another converted free. Marquee plays in clutch moments have been a hallmark of O’Donnell’s career; his green flag against Kilkenny last July was the goal of the championship; his backhand catch off a puckout in the All-Ireland quarter-final against Dublin was another sprinkle of pure magic.
O’Donnell has been pulling rabbits out of the hat for years but this season has been his most consistent. He had often struggled to exert his full influence against Limerick in recent years but his performance in April was O’Donnell’s best in his last five games against the All-Ireland champions. That afternoon, O’Donnell set up 1-3, which should have been 2-4.
Eleven years after his monumental display in the 2013 All-Ireland final replay against Cork launched him across the hurling sky like a comet, when scoring 3-3 at only 19 years old, O’Donnell has landed into this championship like a meteor. He is such a weapon now that Clare can use him whatever way they need to wreak havoc.
O’Donnell doesn’t need measured ball like other forwards because he can secure possession whatever way it arrives. Against Waterford, O’Donnell won two balls when it didn’t appear physically possible for him to be able to do so. He is as brave as a lion, but much of that ball-winning capacity and lust for physicality is bound up in O’Donnell’s immense strength.
O’Donnell played a key role in Clare’s 2013 All-Ireland triumph
Despite being a coeliac, O’Donnell’s diet is pristine and is tailored to hone power. His numbers in the gym are off the charts, but it isn’t all about lifting heavy weights either. O’Donnell’s explosiveness is also on another level.
Almost all of his focus over the winter is on honing and developing those areas because his schedule allows it. Brian Lohan, the Clare manager, lets O’Donnell work away individually before he arrives back into collective training in mid-March.
“It’s kind of an unwritten contract,” O’Donnell said recently. “As long as I am performing and doing what needs to be done for the team, Brian and I are happy with that. I don’t think I’m certain that if I go back the first week in November that I’ll be on it the last week in April. The one thing it does offer you is that psychological, mental freshness.”
O’Donnell first saw the benefits of that approach in 2019 when missing the whole league while in Harvard University on a Fulbright scholarship. But his routine over the past three years began from a much darker starting point.
Kilkenny’s Keoghan is the only player in this championship with more assists than O’Donnell
In 2021, O’Donnell missed the championship after suffering a horrendous concussion. He thought his hurling career was over. “Playing with Clare wasn’t on my radar at all,” he said in November 2021. “I can’t emphasise how much it was not a priority. I missed my brain functioning in the way it should. That was all I missed.”
O’Donnell returned to play with Eire Óg in the club championship, but he was unsure as to his next move with Clare. “If I didn’t play one minute in the league next year,” he said in that same interview, “that wouldn’t bother me in the slightest” It hasn’t ever since. The past three years have been the best of his career.
In 2022, O’Donnell moved to the half-forward line and flourished in a new environment. As a goalscorer O’Donnell had never been confident in his point-shooting so he accepted the need to change his game. His father makes his hurleys and O’Donnell began using a heavier model. His evolution into becoming a stronger and better-rounded player has allowed O’Donnell to mature into a near unstoppable force since returning to his best position at full-forward this season.
O’Donnell has always taken as much pride in his studies and work as his studies
Despite being at the peak of his powers, the fear in Clare is that this is possibly O’Donnell’s last year as an inter-county player. “I wouldn’t rule out playing next year but I wouldn’t be absolutely certain I would either,” he said in May. “I want to work abroad and move abroad and take that opportunity while I still have it.”
Completing his PhD in microbiology, microbiomes specifically, showcased how O’Donnell has always taken as much pride in his studies and work as his hurling. O’Donnell’s interest in science was sparked after getting an astronomy set for Christmas when he was eight. One of his long-term goals is to become an astronaut.
That ambition is hindered by timing, and not being a US citizen, which means having to go through the European Space Agency, who do recruitment drives every 10-12 years. O’Donnell missed the last drive because he was finishing his PhD and he’s not sure where he will be when that window opens up again. Tens of thousands apply but the agency always look for researchers to do microbiome analysis to see how different organisms are surviving and interacting in zero-gravity environments.
So, it is possible. With O’Donnell, anything is.
TNH
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This is more of it @Batigol … The Limericks taking holiday on MF day… They want the win but clearly don’t need it.
He wouldn’t hold a candle to Hugo Keenan on the bronco machine
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Clare have to beat Limerick at some stage,I think today could be the day.Clare by 3.
You either want it or need it.
I’m less hopeful today, I think our round robin performances have been more uneven than previous years and we haven’t really put 70/75 minutes of hurling together
Yet 
Law of averages suggests they win one alright. Hard to know where both teams are really at as form has been patchy for both
He wouldnt pick his nose
True dat, don’t think either team has been as good as last year.Yet.Hayes has been sensational so far,if Clare keep him quiet they might do it.
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All those effortless reps but a brush of wind from an opponent has him on his hole every Sunday 
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Looking to putting the feet up now and watching a cut throat Munster SHC semi final.
Oh wait it’s all over bar the shouting.
Thurles on Munster final day is THE most overrated fan experience
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Is the hurling on at 2 or 4 or some other time completely?
It’s supposed to be Cork and Tipp
That’s why it’s so highly rated