‘I’m reminded of it every time I see Clare play’ – 2013 hero O’Donovan
DOMHNALL O’DONOVAN is reminded of it every time he sees Clare play.
THAT point, in the 2013 AllIreland final against Cork, which ensured a replay.
Clare would win the rematch and O’Donovan’s name was etched in the history books.
But in February of last year, O’Donovan announced that he was walking away from intercounty hurling.
Dublin-based, and in a busy manufacturing analytical role with the booming Kerry Group, O’Donovan (right) looks back now and says that he made a “great decision”.
He still hurls with his home club Clonlara and while he misses the inter-county life, there was only one decision to be made in relation to that, once he’d weighed everything up.
O’Donovan says: “How do I feel now having stepped away? “A great decision, ultimately. “I’ve been very happy to get on with my life.
“I was on the panel for seven years, happy to take the opportunity, to have gotten a good bit out of the game, but I took the chance to progress in work, to enjoy a bit of travelling and it’s been quite good.”
Last summer, O’Donovan visited India and posted a goodluck message ahead of Clare’s qualifier clash with Laois on Twitter, with the Taj Mahal in the background.
He was in Thailand before Christmas, with his now fiancée, and this year, he’s been to Mexico, Vietnam (with his twin brother Cormac) and Brazil, from where he’s recently returned.
PLEASURE
Most trips are business-related, others for pleasure, but they’ve allowed O’Donovan to see parts of the world he might not necessarily have been able to had he stayed hurling with Clare.
He was in Brazil in early June and watched the second-half of Clare’s Munster semi-final against Limerick on his mobile phone in the back of a cab on his way to the airport.
O’Donovan says: “Whatever way the flights were, I was trying to get most of the Sunday at home with my girlfriend.
“It was either go to the airport, have no time with her at all and watch the match there, or watch half the match here [at home] and half in the taxi on the way to the airport.”
It’s still hard to escape the memories of that famous point in 2013, not that O’Donovan ever fully wants to.
He smiles: “I’ve put the drama of 2013 behind me but I met a Cork fan, from Castlemartyr, in the airport when I arrived in Vietnam. I am reminded of it every time I see Clare play and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss it but I’m happy with how things have gone. “I wouldn’t have been happy to make a career decision based purely on hurling. “Anybody who knows me would say that I think too much about everything, and that decision was thought out an awful lot.” O’Donovan was 27 at the time, going on 28, and now he’s recently engaged and living in Inchicore. Life goes on but he still follows the fortunes of the Clare senior hurlers with keen interest. O’Donovan says: “From where Davy picked them up, he left Clare in a better position. “There was massive improvement and a lot of professionalism brought into it.
“I have no personal experience of dealing with the current Clare management, never hurled underage under them or anything like that, but what they did with the U-21s was extremely impressive.
“Where they are right now? People are being a little overcritical.
“Against Cork, they had a crazy amount of wides and there were numerous times when the ball went out over the sideline, ten yards from being perfect passes to Conor McGrath or Shane O’Donnell.
“Cork were better but Clare had a lot of opportunities in that game.
“It’s just that Clare’s delivery of the ball to the forwards wasn’t at the same standard of Cork’s.
“After a while, Clare started hitting longer balls and going for long-range shots; a lot of those drifted wide as well and panic set in there.
“Going into the game against Tipp, people will look at it and say that Clare are not up to it, that all of these great names are not performing. But that will work in their favour. It will be a close game – but I think they could catch Tipperary.”