‘There were no harsh words at half-time. We knew what we had to do’ – O’Donoghue
CORK came into the Munster Final last Sunday with plenty to fear and plenty to be optimistic about. The Rebels were unbeaten, seemingly on an unstoppable roll and had already accounted for their opponents in round one as well as in last year’s showpiece game.
On the down side, every game you win is one step closer to your next loss and Cork really did want to put this back to back provincial drought thing to bed.
While tension was always going to be a factor for both players and supporters spare a thought for Cork corner-back Seán O’Donoghue who was lining up for the first time in the championship showpiece game – and that in front of over 45,000 hurling fans.
“It was my first Munster final, but we all just took it as another game having said that we didn’t want to go through the back door and were determined to try and come out on top and luckily it worked out for us.”
O’Donoghue and his teammates had obviously done some work on Clare before the final and identified a holding plan to deal with the Clare attack.
“They seem to blitz a lot of teams at the very start and get going very fast and build up momentum, but we just said if we can hold them out for the first 20 or 30 minutes, whilst trying to perform ourselves then we knew we would be in with a chance of winning.”
After seeing Clare at first hand earlier in the year O’Donoghue would have known what to expect, but even he was taken aback by the performance of John Conlon. Nevertheless he was delighted at how his colleagues at the rear dealt with the challenge.
“They put us under a lot of pressure, particularly in the first-half with quality players like John Conlon that take some stopping. I think we managed to get a grip on them after the break and I think we got the better of their major players in that half.
“We needed to hold our positions better and make sure we set up our shape better and I think we managed to do that and it put us in a strong position to help close the game out.
“After their scores, we needed to calm down and make sure the next ball was the most important one and win that and we did that a lot better in the second-half.” Keeping a side down when you are on top is crucial at this level and O’Donoghue was clear that this was Cork’s focus.
“Even when we managed to get ahead we kept pushing and tried to make sure we didn’t let them back into it.”
O’Donoghue knew the significance of the scores before the break and like his manager before him felt that they were the seminal moments of this game. Luke Meade’s goal and Mark Coleman’s point meant that Cork had a chance.
“The scores before half-time were and they brought us to within four points and put us in a fairly good position going in compared to where we could have been and it showed there in the end just how vital they were.”
As Cork headed to the tunnel after the short whistle many felt that the half time team talk would be crucial but the Inniscarra man was adamant that things were far from panicked.
“There were no harsh words at half-time, we knew where we were at and what we had to do. We knew going out that if we performed like we can then it would be difficult to stop us and we managed to up our game and thankfully it worked out for us.” Sunday’s win will obviously be a stand-out day for the player in a career that may still have over a decade to go, however, the Munster champion will take nothing for granted after all the dreams and work put in over the years.
“It’s an honour and just unbelievable to win my first senior Munster medal. It’s what fellas dream about when you are growing up playing hurling. I think I am the only fella today collecting my first medal so that’s a huge honour for me.”
Next up for Seán is a trip to headquarters and a date he can’t wait for.
“We are onto the All-Ireland semi-final now and can look forward to playing in Croke Park. I have never played there in a competitive game like this. I am really looking forward to that, but there is plenty of work to be done ahead of that game.”