Irish Daily Star - Inside Sport
DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE
THERE is talk of a different Shane O’Donnell.
Whispers that he’s changed his body shape — bulking up significantly — to make him more effective in the modern game.
Talk of Clare giving him a different role to that he had in the past.
O’Donnell’s return couldn’t be more welcome as there were fears he would never be back in a Clare jersey.
He returned to training in Clare and is set for his first Championship game in two years.
The reason he missed the 2021 Championship was a frightening one.
Last June, O’Donnell suffered a concussion in training that left him in a dark place.
He was hit with bouts of nausea and the pressure inside his head meant he couldn’t even watch Clare’s games on TV.
“Even being in the house could have caused me to get my heartrate up, which could have brought on me feeling worse again,” he later explained.
“I had my headphones on a table listening to the match but not really listening. If the match was getting intense, I would turn the headphones off. Physically, I wasn’t able for any more than that.
Wait
He added: “The frustration with going to a doctor is that they just don’t know. They tell you things like don’t look at the TV, or wait it out.
“The whole protocol process nearly drove me insane. The first step of the protocol is to wait until you have no symptoms. I was six weeks in and that was no help to me whatsoever.
“People’s personal experience can give you a totally different angle on things you’d never consider before. A good phrase I heard is even the most intelligent person in the world can’t write down a list of things that wouldn’t occur to them.
“If you haven’t experienced something and you don’t have any exposure to it, it’s not on your mind. This whole concussion has completely changed what’s at the front of my mind.
“While I was dealing with the real difficult part of the symptoms, I really felt that I was never going to play hurling again.
“I was resigned to that fact because I was thinking that I could never justify putting myself back in this position. It’s only when you’re
coming out of it that your mindset changes.”
That he talks with such intelligence and insight about what he went through is no surprise.
He’s Dr Shane O’Donnell now, having completed his PhD in microbiology in UCC.
The boy has become a man — a very impressive man — but it’s still hard not to associate him with one glorious day he had as a teenager.
Bedlam
We’ll never forget the smile that lit up Croke Park on Sunday, September 28, 2013.
That was the day when a 19-yearold O’Donnell was parachuted into the Clare team for the All-Ireland final replay with Cork.
He finished the game with 3-3. His hat-trick of goals that broke the Rebels took him just 19 minutes.
At the final whistle, as bedlam raged around him. O’Donnell was cornered by RTE’s Clare McNamara for an interview.
Tousle-haired, fresh-faced and beaming, he looked as if he’d be more at home on stage with One Direction than in the Croke Park cauldron.
Even in that interview, his composure was striking. As he was finishing up, he pointed to the celebrating Banner hordes at Hill 16, simply marvelling at what had happened to his county.
O’Donnell Mania in Clare in 2013 was at the same level as that inspired by Jason Sherlock in Dublin in 1995.
Indeed, there were even similar stories about recording contracts and trying out for boy bands.
On TV3’s Late Lunch Live shortly after that final, Louis Walsh was a guest.
Presenter Martin King talked up O’Donnell’s Hollywood smile and asked the pop guru if the Clare teen could cut in his business.
“Have you got his number? Get the number. Show me what he looks like.”
King suggested that O’Donnell and a few Clare teammates could set up a band called Mid-Westlife.
Sing
“Yes! Not a bad idea. But they need to be able to sing,” was
Walsh’s response.
Life in the spotlight didn’t sit particularly well with O’Donnell, however.
He stepped away from the promotional gigs, turned down interview offers, and got on with it.
Clare slipped down the pecking order and he had a run of injuries that didn’t help him.
But there’s a quiet buzz about O’Donnell again and, in full flight, he’s always worth watching. Welcome back, Doc.