I’M NOT FINISHED YET
His point was crucial in Clare winning an All-Ireland but he still yearns for a return
THESE ARE THE DAYS YOU ALWAYS DREAM OF PLAYING
‘Would I have preferred a better send-off? Oh yeah. Everybody would love the Henry Shefflin send-off: go win an All-Ireland, then win the club All-Ireland, then retire. That would have been awesome.’
HE player who scored arguably the most famous point in Clare hurling history is sitting in a coffee shop in Naas and talking life, work, and inter-county exit strategies. It’s the week of Clare’s pivotal Munster Championship semi-final against Waterford but Domhnall O’Donovan’s build-up couldn’t have been further removed from all his old team-mates.
Last week, work as a manufacturing analyst with Kerry Group, whose office is just up the road, took him to Bengaluru in southern India.
‘I wasn’t hurling anyway,’ he says of his time out there. ‘There is no place to hit a ball off a wall.’ Instead, one evening was spent taking in a cricket match involving Royal Challengers Bangalore, the local equivalent ‘of an All-Ireland semi-final’ he says smiling.
Daily life is a bit of a culture shock to a boy raised in Clonlara in Clare.
‘The only thing particularly startling is the number of people there. You think the M50 is bad in the morning? This is just something else. A culture of “if there’s a gap there I’ll squeeze in before the next guy” as opposed to designated lanes.’
He hopes to get to Thurles this afternoon but it involves rearranging flights out to India and taking a day off work on Monday where he is going to be based for another few weeks. One thing he is happy to clarify: the corner-back who earned immortality in the 2013 All-Ireland final against Cork, by nailing the equalising point right at the death, is not an ex-Clare hurler.
Pressures of work forced him to opt off the panel in February, still just 27. Missing out on the county’s first National League title since 1978 was hard; missing out on Championship days like today even harder.
‘These are the days you always dream of playing,’ he admits. ‘I really, really would love to be playing in it. But I decided to take a step back from it this year because I didn’t feel like I could commit enough.
‘When I weighed everything up, if I was going to stay in Dublin, it wasn’t an option for me. In recent years, I was arriving late to training, or just in time. The hamstring is a big dodgy when you’re pressing the accelerator on the motorway.
‘I felt that if you can’t commit enough, there is no point. I was going to be doing the exact same thing as the previous year only expecting something different. And that’s Einstein’s definition of madness.’
O’Donovan, a high achiever who clocked 530 points in his Leaving Certificate, figured something had to give. ‘I felt like I didn’t do myself justice; I felt I could be better than I was. So something had to change, whether it was work-related or put hurling to the side for a time.
‘I saw something in the paper recently about players “missing in action” for the Championship and I was down as “opted out” and that is true. The door isn’t closed. If Davy [Fitzgerald] sees fit to have me back in, I’d love to be back in. But circumstances, on my part, will have to change.’
He talks glowingly about his manager and mentor who, he says, gave him the chance to repay the faith shown in O’Donovan’s talent. ‘We’ve a good relationship. A few times when I might not have played well in other years and he stuck by me. I’m very thankful to him for that. It wasn’t an easy decision.’
‘It’s nice to be remembered for the right reasons but I don’t want to cling on to that for years. There is much more to me in hurling terms than just that point.’
He doesn’t want ‘that point’ to define his Clare career but to those who will forever associate it with him, it’s a beautiful legacy. The Cork backroom team were gathering around Jimmy Barry Murphy on the sideline at Croke Park on Sunday, September 8, after Patrick Horgan had snatched the lead.
When Clare goalkeeper Patrick Kelly took the puck-out, O’Donovan gambled on darting upfield – ‘I thought we might as well lose by two’ he said after. Patrick O’Connor won the breaking ball, hit Nicky O’Connell who played O’Donovan the pass that saw him sprint down the Cusack Stand sideline and curl over the unlikeliest of equalisers off his left.
It left the whole stadium breathless. His first score in Championship hurling. Imagine. Enough to prompt Marty Morrissey’s ‘Holy Moses’ moment. Without ‘that point’, there would have been no replay, no glorious fourth All-Ireland for Clare.
How he felt at the final whistle? ‘I just wanted to lie down. I was knackered. Because the entire game was so intense, the whole way. That’s the thing about All-Irelands in Croke Park: it goes so quick. Like a shot. You look up at the clock and all of a sudden there is 20 minutes gone. I was just out of breath at the end. I took a little rest for myself at the end and then Brendan Bugler came and picked me up.’
It wasn’t long before the slagging started. ‘I was in the showers after the game. Aaron Cunningham came in and just looked at me and smiled and shook his head in disbelief. Then the next training session we were back we were doing a shooting drill and there was a competition. Davy picked three captains for shooting. I can’t remember who the other two were but he said, “make sure you’re a captain for the shooting drill!”’
The replay was another game for the ages, Clare’s five-goal starburst of scores ensuring there was no need for another dramatic intervention from corner-back, Shane O’Donnell stealing his thunder in the scoring stakes with a glorious hat-trick.
Another memory that stays with him is the homecoming. ‘Seeing the crowds and seeing what it meant along the way. Went to a lot of towns. 30,000 people in Ennis. It was crazy going up on stage. Marty Morrissey was there and he made me speak in front of the crowd.
‘He was introducing every player and they’d wave and walk away. I waved and he said “you’re not getting away that easily”. Q&A in front of the crowd. I’d be a small bit shy in that regard. I don’t really like the limelight to be honest!’
That’s why he is reluctant to play up his own sublime intervention. He’d love to have kicked on in 2014, in 2015, for Clare to have kicked on, but he’s at that stage in his life where career choices have to be made.
‘There is very rarely glory for defenders at all. There’s more shame. Being the villain. It’s a nice memory but it’s not something I want to cling on to too much.’
He doesn’t even have the bragging rights in his own house when it comes to All-Ireland final points, twin brother Cormac hit the score that won the 2009 Under 21 final against Kilkenny. ‘That was a winning point! Farther out than me. On the midfield
mark, pretty much middle of the field. Pass from Conor McGrath who was under pressure. Struck it higher than it went further, off his left. And his right is his strongest.’
THE O’Donovans have done their bit for Clare hurling. Domhnall mentions how older brother Tomás paved the way, on the extended panel in 2002 that reached the All-Ireland final. ‘Seeing him bringing the jerseys home and telling me about the lads he’d be in training with. Colin Lynch and Seánie McMahon were the guys I would have dreamed of emulating.’
Ever versatile, he has won a county championship with Clonlara at centre-back, an All-Ireland U21 at wingback, and a Fitzgibbon Cup at midfield with NUIG in 2010.
And he has an admission to make. ‘I think it was U10s – I got put in the backs in some blitz and stayed there since. I’m not sure if I should say this but I don’t like corner-back! It’s almost like a thankless job. You could hurl every ball for the game and then your man might slip in for a goal at the end. You might get nine out of 10 balls and still end up a villain. It’s one of those high pressure positions.
‘A lot of my friends who are forwards would disagree, “Ye cornerbacks are such ruffians, pulling and dragging out of us”. That was never part of my game.
He was in the stand in Thurles last month for Clare’s first National League title since 1978, though he avoided the pitch invasion after the replay against Waterford. ‘That’s the lads’ moment. I was happy to clap them. It was amazing.’
‘On one hand you’re delighted for the lads, on the other you’re thinking, “I would love to be there too.” It was great to see Clare bridging that gap, 38 years.’
But can Clare use this afternoon’s Munster semi-final against Waterford as a springboard to an All-Ireland? ‘I definitely believe they can. But it won’t be easy. People are maybe blowing them up too much. Clare are great when they’re underdogs.
‘The days they played Tipperary and Kilkenny, those two teams weren’t at the races at all. They won’t make the same mistakes. A few goals went in that could have been prevented.’
His future depends on whether work commitments allow him to rejoin the squad. ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen next year but I really hope Clare do it this year. I can’t really say what the future holds.’ Any travel plans will be limited over the summer so he just wants to put his hurling energy into Clonlara. Living in Inchicore, the option of putting on a Dublin shirt is not one he’d contemplate. ‘No, I wouldn’t. I couldn’t see myself playing for another county. It wouldn’t really mean anything for me .’ The man who guided Clare to their previous two All Irelands, Ger Loughnane, says the current squad need another to be regarded as a great team. O’Donovan (left) begs to differ. ‘Maybe to go down in the history books. I don’t think they need to show it though – everybody knows they’re a great team. They’ve nothing to prove.’ Neither does he.