‘Extend the championship, get rid of the league’ – Clare’s Shane O’Donnell has a solution to the season for hurling

Shane O’Donnell’s penchant for skipping the league slog and being primed for championship began almost by accident – because of that career-threatening concussion he suffered close to three years ago.

The Clare dynamo has never looked back, winning back-to-back All-Stars and twice propelling his county to within 70 minutes of an All-Ireland SHC final.

It works for O’Donnell because he has made it work; but also because his Banner boss, Brian Lohan, has been so accommodating of his late spring returns.

The question is, would other managers be so willing to give some slack instead of dragging back the masses for pre-season training?

“That’s the million dollar question,” O’Donnell admits, speaking at the launch of Darkness Into Light 2024, supported by Electric Ireland.

“I think players want it, that’s all I can say. I don’t think any player wants to go back in November. I don’t think any player values January games. I don’t think they replicate what it’s like to play championship later in the year.

“Whether it be pre-season leagues or the league matches in January, I don’t think they’re games people enjoy being involved in.

“Maybe it’s just more my opinion. I haven’t, for a number of years, enjoyed playing January games.”

But if January is a no-go, when do you start the league?

“If I had my way, I would just extend the championship and get rid of the league – just have a long championship and not have multiple, different competitions,” O’Donnell replies.

“Look, that obviously is not going to be happening any time soon. I think it would give players the opportunity to take championship as seriously as possible and players peaking would be targeted at your championship games.”

The Éire Óg clubman had the same conversation with his good friend and former Clare teammate, Podge Collins. Coming from a dual background, Collins underlined how “football is quite different” and a higher value is placed on league matches.

“I think decoupling how hurling and football are run has started to happen, but they’re two very different sports. I don’t think they need to look alike in their structures,” he expands.

“Keeping the football league makes sense, and from my perspective, getting rid of the hurling leagues makes sense. But, obviously, that’s maybe quite a drastic change to make.”

Hurling’s tiered championship structure is “genuinely working”, O’Donnell reckons. “There are good structures in place and I think if you gave them more air to breathe and extend it, rather than have a league that’s not really serving the players and supporters – that’s just my perspective.”

That perspective is predicated on O’Donnell’s own spectacular career renaissance. The teenage rookie who plundered a hat-trick when parachuted into the 2013 All-Ireland final replay against Cork emerged from his well-documented concussion hell to win his first career All-Star in 2022 and then another last season.

This spring, he made his playing comeback as a second-half sub in the NHL Division 1 final against Kilkenny – Clare’s first silverware since winning the 2016 league.

He has followed up with typically influential displays in the Munster SHC round-robin – in a painful defeat to Limerick and then a dramatic victory over Cork last Sunday. He brilliantly created carbon-copy goals in both – assisting Aidan McCarthy against Limerick and Mark Rodgers against Cork – while blasting home his own three-pointer in the latter.

You wonder how has he, once again, hit the ground running to such telling effect?

“I think, personally, it’s because I haven’t been hurling all year. It’s just mental freshness,” he suggests.

The key to having that “energy and psychological edge” comes from keeping himself fit in the off-season but without the “sheer volume of training”; then he rejoins Clare’s panel “at an appropriate time and take it from there”.

Galway’s Conor Whelan – his second cousin – is currently doing PhD research into mental health and well-being among student athletes. The issue of how the GAA deals with player welfare and training loads resonates with O’Donnell.

He has suggested to a number of the more senior Clare panellists that “you really don’t get the best out of players by bringing them back in November and having six months training under their belts before they come into championship. If you’re talking about peaking players, there are better ways to do it.

“It also depends on the seniority of the player. I would say if I did this when I was 20 or 21 or 22, I don’t know if it would work as well.

“The volume of training I have under my belt from a hurling perspective does mean that I can take some time away from it and come back and be confident the hurling will be there. I wouldn’t necessarily be as certain if this was ten years ago.”

The leeway afforded by his manager, Brian Lohan, clearly helps.

“It kind of came about because of that concussion I had a number of years ago – the amount of time before I went back the next year. I really did push out that decision as to whether I was going to play again for a long time,” he recalls.

“That kind of set the precedent, and then I had an OK year – so it made that decision a bit easier. But then Brian has been extremely mature and frankly brilliant about it.”

It might be a different story, of course, if O’Donnell had come back stuck in first gear.

“That’s kind of the unwritten contract!” he agrees. “As long as I am performing and doing what needs to be done for the team, I think he’s willing to work with me there.”

O’Donnell doesn’t have a clear answer – not yet, at least – as to whether this will be his swansong year as an inter-county hurler, as has been inferred in some quarters.

“I kind of mentioned last year that I’m taking it a year at a time and that’s definitely how I’m thinking about it at the moment. I wouldn’t rule out playing next year, but I wouldn’t be absolutely certain I would either,” says the PhD graduate in microbiology.

“It’s more about work … I want to work abroad and take that opportunity while I still have it, to strike while the iron is hot from my work perspective. That’s kind of my thinking. It’s a challenging decision to make, obviously. It’s not one I would make lightly.”

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 11. People can sign up to take part in this year’s event at darknessintolight.ie.

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